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The Proofs of Life After Death 



"Jo'^, shipmate, joy! 
(Pleased to my soul at death I cry,) 
Our life is closed, our life begins. 
The long, long anchorage we leave, 
The ship is clear at last, she leaps! 
She swiftly courses from the shore, 
Joy, shipmate, joy!" 

— Whitman. 



Ttie Proofs of Life 
oAfter 'Deatli 

qA Twentieth Century Symposium 



An Assembly and Collation of Letters and 
Expressions from Eminent Scientists and 
Thinkers of the World, Giving the 
Strongest and Best Reasons Known 
to the World To-day, as Substantial 
Evidence of the Continued Exist- 
ence of the Soul after Death. 

Arranged under the several heads of 

Science, Psychical '^esearcli, PJ^ihsophy, 
, Spiritualism 

■''^■i' O With a Special Coniribntion on 

4 

Immortality from W^ew Standpoints 



Compiled and Edited b"^ 

^^bert J. Thompson 

Officier de la Legion d'honnear of France 

Late Special Envoy of the United States to the President of the 

French "Jiepublic 



Robert J. Thompson, Pablisfier 
1604 Wellington cAvenue, Chicago, U. S. A. 

C. D. Cazenove & Son, London, igo2 



«:c:- 



\ 



THE LlBRAfiV OF 
. CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

FEB 16 1903 

Copyright Entry 



CLASS CL 



XXc. No. 

S S 



COPY B 



Copfriglji igoz 
'Robert y. Tkompson 



1 dedicate 

this book Jo my brother Flint, wl^o 

as to this life is dead; 

jxiiether he is conscious of my humble effotts 

to thus lionox. his memory 

J cannot say; 

J tl^ink he is. 



"Meanwhile what are we to do? To inquire, to criti- 
cise, to discover, hut also to live, — to live this life here 
and now: aided thereto, it may he, hy a laboriously 
acquired certainty that it is only an interlude to a more 
splendid drama." 

Dr. Sir Oliver Lodge, F. R. S., 

Birmingham, England. 



"Every institution connected with social, moral and 
religious life must he profoundly affected, whether for 
good or ill, by such an assurance as may be given by 
psychical research of a future life, the doubt about 
which has turned the aspirations of modern civilization 
from the moral to the economic ideal." 

Prof. J. H. Hyslop, 

ColumMa University. 



(10) 



PREFACE 

How The Symposium Came to be Written. 

"Your brother is dead!" 

Such was the midnight message I received a Httle 
over a year ago. It was the first time Death had 
struck so near to me since the days of my childhood 
— the first time I had had occasion to marshal up 
such hazy and chaotic reasons as I possessed for the 
conviction and consolation that — "It is well — he is 
gone — I also shall follow soon or late, and we shall 
meet again." They seemed insufficient and trivial 
in the presence of the great fact that he lay there 
dead. 

And then, the minister in the lonely little church, 
himself almost a stranger in the community where 
he worked, and altogether a stranger to the relatives 
of the deceased, knew not what to say. So he 
preached a sermon that might, at least, give some 
hope to infidel, agnostic or Christian. He advanced, 
in his simple v\'ay, from scientific analogy and phil- 
osophy, such reasons for a belief in life after death as 
he thought might appeal to those who could not 
accept, nor even cared to accept, though in the pres- 
ence of Death, the doctrine and faith of religion. 

(U) 



12 Preface 

Personally, my belief in a life after death was 
more or less fixed, a permanent conviction, shad- 
owed at times perhaps with puzzling questions and 
negative thought, but strong and vigorous, never- 
theless, and seeking always the sunlight of truth. 

Endeavoring to console one even nearer to my 
brother than myself, I realized how unprepared, how 
barren is the average mind in the face of this seem- 
ingly great catastrophe. In the absence of absolute 
demonstration, at hand and ready at all times, the 
reasons, principles and inferences for this belief can- 
not be too numerous; for they must contend with 
the evidence of the world of sense, a world to which 
the greater part of mankind for the most part con- 
fines its activities. 

Hence this book — this Symposium. 

Some time after returning to my home in Chi- 
cago, and in accordance with a plan to bring into a 
concise whole the strongest and best reasons 
advanced by science, philosophy and common sense 
as substantial evidence of a future life, I addressed 
the following letter to a number of eminent men in 
America, England, France, Germany, Italy and 
Russia: — 

Bear Sir: 

The Author of this letter, inspired hy the untimely 
decease of a dear friend, and in contemplation of the numer- 
ous philosophical and logical theories leading to a belief in 
the continued existence of the soul, or personal identity 



Preface 13 

after death, "begs of yon the great favor of a letter, setting 
out as briefly, or at such length as may be convenient, what 
-3/011 consider to be the strongest reason, or argument, 
-advanced by science or philosophy, or by common sense, in 
favor of an affirmative answer to this mighty question; or 
-:preferably, a statement of your own deductions thereon. 

It is our desire to obtain from thinkers and educators of 
the world, an expression — a twentieth century bulletin, on 
this subject. 

Our request will impress you doubtless as an unusual 
vne, but none the less will you see the force of it, and its 
possibilities. Who can measure the impetus such a compila- 
tion may have upon the inquiring human mind? 

May I not have your co-operation in this matter f 

Thanking you now in advance for the courtesy of a 
reply, I am Fraternally yours, 

ROBERT J. THOMPSON. 

Wellington Ave., Chicazo, U. S. A. 
October, zgoi. 

From the answers to this letter and from refer- 
ences I have received in connection with it from 
various correspondents, some of them the most emi- 
nent of our day, and some, like the author, unknown 
to the world of scientific thought and research, I 
have put together this book. There are some repe- 
titions of thought in it, naturally, but they will be 
found where most essential, that is, on the strongest 
points. I have taken the liberty to introduce in dif- 
ferent places throughout the matter, in parentheses, 
definitions of some of the technical scientific terms, 
that the ordinary reader may without difficulty com- 
prehend the thought. 



14 Preface 

Most persons, whether Christian, Jew or Gentile, 
reading here the reasons and deductions given by 
those whose thought make up this symposium, y^WV^ 
it is my belief, close the book with satisfaction, and 
with the conviction of knowledge, rather than faith, 
or, if you prefer, as well as faith, that there is — a 
LIFE AFTER DEATH. 

ROBERT J. THOMPSON. 

Chicago, Oct, is, J902, 



To the many correspondents to 
whose courtesy in responding to 
my inquiry these pages owe their 
greater value, I tender here my 
sincere acknowledgments. 

THE EDITOR. 



Recrimination, 

By Special Permission of Mrs. Wilcox. 
I. 

Baid Life to Death, "MetMnks if I were you 
I would not carry such an awesome face 
To terrify the helpless human race. 

And if, indeed, those wondrous tales &e true 

Of happiness heyond, and if I kneto 

About the boasted blessings of that place, 
I would not hide so miserly all trace 

Of my vast knowledge. Death, if I were you. 

But like a glorious angel I would lean 

Above the pathtvay of each sorrowing soul, 
Hope in my eyes and comfort in my breath, 

And strong conviction in my radiant mien. 
The while I tvhispered of that beauteous goal. 
This toould I do if I were you, Death!" 

II. 
Said Death to Life, "If I were you, my friend, 

I would not lure confiding souls each day 

With fair, false smiles to enter on a way 
So filled with pain and trouble to the end. 
J would not terapt those whom I should defend. 

Nor stand unmoved and see them go astray. 

Nor toould I force unwilling souls to stay 
IVho longed for freedom, were I you, my friend. 
But like a tender mother I would take 

The weary world upon my sheltering breast 
And wipe away its tears and soothe its strife. 
I would fulfill my promises, and make 

My children bless me as they sank to rest. 

Where now they curse — if I were you, O Life!" 

III. 

Life made no answer; and Death spoke again: 
*'I would not woo from God's sweet nothingness 
A soul to being, if I could not bless 
And crown it with all joy. If unto men 
My face seems awesome, tell me. Life, why, then. 
Do they pursue me, mad for my caress. 
Believing in my silence lies redress 
For your loud falsehoods? (So Death spoke again.) 
Oh, it is well for you I am not fair. 

Well that I hide behind a voiceless tomb 
The mighty secrets of that other place. 
Else xoould you stand in impotent despair 

While unfledged souls straight from the mother 
womb 
Rushed to my arms and spat upon your face." 
Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 

(15) 



"The immortality of the soul is a matter that con- 
cerns us so much, that affects us so deeply, that we 
must have lost all sentiment if its investigation leofues 
us indifferent. All our actions and thoughts follow 
paths so different, varying according to the hope of 
gaining eternal blessings or not, that it is impossible 
to take any sensible or judicious step without regulat- 
ing it from this standpoint, which must be our -final 

object." 

— Pascal. 



(i<3) 



INTRODUCTION 

The Idea of the Book. 

The facts, statements and expressions of opinion 
contained in this volume— THE PROOFS OF 
LIFE AFTER DEATH— are grouped under the 
several headings of Science, Psychical Research, 
Philosophy, and SpirituaHsm. This classification 
has been made in order to divide the work into 
parts; and for the purpose, too, of placing the 
various persons whose thought I have used under 
the standards they would perhaps prefer to be found. 
The grouping is not altogether correct; for all 
knowledge eventually comes under the broad head 
of Science. Psychical Research, for example, has 
become during its twenty years of systematic organ- 
ization quite as respectable a branch of science as 
medicine or astronomy. Spiritualism, aside from its 
phenomenal aspect, is the highest kind of philos- 
ophy, and in its phenomenal aspect, according to 
Professor Alfred Russel Wallace, Sir William 
Crookes and other noted and conscientious scien- 
tists, one of the most enticing and important fields 
of scientific investigation. 

If it were not for the fact that among the conserv- 

(17) 



1 8 Introduction 

ative, the materialist class of scientists, the theory is 
accepted that thought is a product or function of the 
pasty gray matter of the brain, it might well be said 
that philosophy had already definitely proven the 
immortality of the soul. This scientific doctrine that 
thought is a function of the brain seems, how- 
ever, to be rapidly falling into the limbo of mistaken 
deductions, especially so, in the face of the introduc- 
tion into our universities and colleges of the study 
of experimental psychology, and the more or less 
approved demonstrations furnished by the Psychic 
Research Society that certain marked phases of 
thought and intelligence exist independent of any 
brain whatever. 

The idea, of which this book is the result, has 
been to bring together into a combined form and in 
accordance, I may add, with the modern commer- 
cial scheme of economy the various thoughts and 
reasons men possess for a belief in the continued 
conscious existence of the soul after death. In pre- 
senting such a symposium to the world of books, it 
has been the thought of the author, as well, to 
awaken in the minds of those before whose eyes it 
may pass, the hope, if not the conviction, that this 
profound problem is not unanswerable; that it is a 
practical question, open and demanding investiga- 
tion and solution; that upon its issue rests the most 
stupendous results in civilization and the relations of 
man to man in all their varied aspects. 



Introduction 19 

Full knowledge of the value of human life, its 
necessity in the evolution of an individual soul, and 
the essential v^orth to the whole of that spirit atom, 
if such it be, such knowledge would doubtless con- 
tribute more toward the relief of distress, the speedy 
and certain upbuilding of the race, its evolution and 
progress, than any or even all conceivable knowl- 
edge, other than this, to which the mind of man 
could aspire. 

It might be, however, that an absolute, settled 
solution of the question of future life, v/ithout a cor- 
responding knowledge and appreciation of the pur- 
pose of life, would mean, whatever the solution, the 
quick destruction of mankind. For, as in the midst 
of a journey when the voyager is hurried on with 
increasing speed to a destination he knows not of, 
there comes to him the knowledge, fixed, inexor- 
able, implacable and unquestioned, of not only the 
utter fruitlessness of his journey, but of appalling 
annihilation at its end; would he bear the agonies, 
the failures, the storms and wrecks bestrewing his 
onward course? What conscious being does not live 
in anticipation of the coming hour, of the morrow, 
or in the hopes of fulfillment of the aspirations and 
ambitions of to-day? If his train were bound to 
destruction- —there were no uncertainty, no hope, no 
future — the traveler, whether on life's journey or 
the Twentieth Century Express, would, with all his 
companions, leap, not for life, but for death, and 



20 Introduction 

dying would leave no progeny to face the hideous 
mockery they had escaped. 

And yet — 

On the other hand, the traveler, moving onward 
to a goal, far away seemingly — lovely possibly, and 
harmonious as the summer days of youth; the hours, 
the days and years drag on with the same pains and 
storms and despondent wrecks; he travels on. Sud- 
denly there comes to him the ultimate conviction, 
the demonstration and certain knowledge, that 
death is the doorway here and now not less open 
than at the end of the journey, to the freedom, har- 
mony, joy and greater life of man — the race might 
live, but the individual would rush quickly, happily 
and without hesitation into the arms of the Deliv- 
erer. 

The million years or centuries or ages, as the 
case may be, of evolution of this wondrous animal 
man might thus be defeated; for free will, reason, 
justice, sentiment and love are qualities not belong- 
ing to toys and playthings. And "a little learning is 
a dangerous thing." 

So a realization of the purport and value or neces- 
sity of this life must come with the final demonstra- 
tion that there is continued life after this. 

Supposing we go back in thought some eighty 
generations. Counting from father to son and then 
to grandson as thirty and sixty years and so on, it 
would take us back into the palmy days of Greece. 



Introduction 2i 

Whether we would find our eightieth progenitor a 
savage denizen of the links of Scotland or a polished 
philosopher of Greece, it would be difficult even to 
make a guess. If we could forget for a moment the 
affairs of to-day, it would not seem so very long ago; 
yet the most learned men of those days accepted as 
truth the idea that the Sun was harnessed to a team 
of powerful horses that during the space of twenty- 
four hours dragged that shining body around the 
Earth. 

Now while these eighty generations of our fathers 
have lived and died on the planet Earth, man's 
knowledge has so increased as to enable us with 
perfect accuracy to ascertain the Sun's distance from 
the Earth — ninety odd millions of miles, its size — 
nearly a million and a half times greater than that of 
the Earth, its weight — over two octilHons of tons, 
or three hundred and fifty thousand times that of the 
Earth. We know its composition, the distance, and 
the direction it travels. 

Organized and concentrated research grows rap- 
idly; it waters its own roots. We learn to-day as 
much in ten years as we learned a century or two 
ago in a hundred years. Where is it going to lead 
us? How many more generations of Thompsons or 
Smiths or Hohenzollerns are to come and go before 
this persistently questioning human mind of ours 
will have laid before us a complete and uncondi- 
tional demonstration of this, the supreme problem of 



22 Introduction 

existence? Can anyone doubt that the question will 
be eventually solved? Can anyone imagine a time, 
unless it be when once the question is solved and 
that forever, when mankind will not demand an 
answer to it? 

Has it occurred to you, my friend, that "the coun- 
try from whose bourne no traveler returns" has an 
innumerable, stupendous population? Do you 
know we are supplying it at the rate of one for 
each second of time, sixty to the minute and three 
thousand six hundred to the hour, a rate of depart- 
ure which means eighty-six thousand four hundred 
emigrants each twenty-four hours; or the nation 
making population of thirty-one and a half millions 
of individuals that take ship for that country each 
year?^ 

No, it has not occurred to you perhaps. Nor 
has it often come to your mind that you, too, sooner 
or later — at most after a few lightning revolutions of 
the planet Earth around the Sun — shall also pass up 
the gang-plank with your day's quota of emigrants 
and take passage tO' the new country. 

Here we gaze upon the locked and forever aban- 
doned dwellings left by our loved ones — ^father, 



1 The death rate throughout the world Is conservatively estima- 
ted at two per cent of the population per annum. It ranges below, 
and of course considerably above, that figure. But mortality experts 
generally count on a rate of twenty deaths yearly to the one thou- 
sand of individuals. The world's population is estimated at not less 
than 1,500,{KJO,00{). Or one million five hundred thousand-thousand 
souls. Twenty times this number gives the appalling total of thirty 
millions, the average number of deaths occurring each year among 
the peoples of the Earth. 



Introduction 23 

mother, brother, sister, sweetheart, wife, son or 
daughter — they have fled. The houses are tenant- 
less and soon to fall into decay. We think: Why not 
look into this matter, this voyage? True, we can- 
not escape the journey and consequently have con- 
cerned ourselves little regarding it. It might be, 
however, that if we could learn something of this 
new country, so populous, so evidently attractive, 
could look beyond the horizon by aid of telescope 
or higher altitude and see the course taken by the 
travelers, whether into some dark vortex of noth- 
ingness or into the sunny seas of persistent con- 
sciousness and evolution; if we could do this, it 
would be the part of wisdom, certainly. 

Whitlier away? 

So we begin to bestir ourselves We climb out 
and upward, somewhat above, as we suppose, the 
heads of our fellows; those engrossed solely in the 
afifairs of the old country, and not caring to widen 
their horizon, especially that part embraced in the 
sea-line. And as we reach higher altitudes the 
atmosphere clears perceptibly, our first observation 
being that above and below, and all about us, 
from every point of vantage imaginable, fellow- 
countrymen are stationed with telescope and various 
inventions calculated to intensify the powers of the 
senses, gazing into the distant haze with a single eye 
— with an eye for signals from the emigrants. 

Thirty-one and a half millions a year! Why it 



24 Introduction 

requires less than three years for the world to fur- 
nish this new country with a population equal to, 
or greater, than that of the entire United States in 
the year of Christ Nineteen Hundred. 

Up the gang-plank they pass, to the tick of the 
everlasting chronometer of Time — one per second. 

Count them, you cannot! For if you live over the 
common span of fourscore years the inconceivable 
number of two billion four hundred million of fel- 
low human creatures of the planet Earth will have 
died, while you have lived. 

To-day, after waiting some ages in the valleys, 
expecting or hoping to hear from those travelers 
outward bound, we stand — in the silence. But it 
is a portentous silence, a whispering, breathing 
silence, a catching of the breath and a trembling 
before the song bursts forth. 

The supreme appetite of man is for life, harmoni- 
ous, immortal life. Nature provides for the fulfill- 
ment, the complete fulfillment at some time or place 
of all the appetites of man. What then of this, the 
supreme, the eternal, the everlasting appetite — the 
desire for immortality? 

Who shall place a limitation here? 

"Knowledge is the winj wherewith we f^y to 
Heaven." All things are for its acquirement. How 
vast it is looking backward, how infinitesimal look- 
ing forward. Increasing knowledge demands more 
knowledge, larger fields and vaster efforts. Man 



Introduction 25 

will not travel forever toward an unknown goal. 
And when the day arrives that he may look for- 
ward to the end of his life's journey, when he may 
look beyond the sea-line and view there, clear and 
beyond peradventure of doubt the quickening clutch 
of the dread maelstrom, the yawning maw of anni- 
hilation, blank death — then would human nature 
turn back upon itself in throes of revolt; evolution 
would cease, and the human race, after a few reac- 
tionary generations, obliterate itself completely from 
the face of the Earth. 

Such a conception of the finality of man's exist- 
ence on the Earth is not impossible; yet it does such 
violence to common sense, to all the schools of 
learning, known, or conceivable to man, that we are 
forced to the conclusion that the demonstration of 
this question of life after death must be affirmative 
and cannot be negative. 

What is the value of a human soul? Is it noth- 
ing, or is it everything, infinitesimal, or is it injfinite? 
Let that question be answered and the sociological 
problem is solved forever. No man would know- 
ingly grind jewels into the dust. And if the human 
life is not an immortal soul in evolution the sooner 
it is known the better, that the useless, unnecessary 
struggle may cease. Would we consciously sow 
germless seed? Do we plant in ashes? What rea- 
sonable being, capable of justice, sympathy and 



26 Introduction 

attachment, could breed a child for annihilation? 
For, in the language of the good gray poet, 



"If otherwise, all these things came to but ashes of dung, 

If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum! for toe are 
betrayed! 

Then indeed suspicion of death. 

Do you suspect death? If I were to suspect death, I should 
die now: 

Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward 
annihilation? 




CONTENTS 



PA.OB, 

Preface — How the Symposium Came to 

BE Written, . . . .11 

Introduction — The Idea of the Book, . 17 

Parts : 

I. — The Scientists, . . . .: ,. 35 

11. — The Psychical Researchers, . .113 

III. — The Philosophers, . . . . 205 

IV. — The Spiritualists, .... 277 

V. — ^What the Editor Thinks About It, . 313 

VI. — Immortality From New Standpoints, . 323 

VII. — Index to Contributors and Authorities, 361 



(27) 



Philosoph-^ of the Good Gray Poet. 

When you read these, I, that was visible, am become 
invisible; 

Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my power, seek- 
ing me; 

Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you, and 
become your loving comrade; 

Be as if I were with you. Be not too certain but I am, 
now with you. 

m * * * * 

What do you think has become of the young and old ment 

And what do you think has become of the women and 
children f 

They are alive and well somewhere ; 

The smallest sprout shows there really is no death; 

And if evei' there icas it led forward to life, and does not 
will at the end to arrest it. 

And ceased the moment life appeared. 

All goes onward, nothing collapses. 

And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and 
luckier. 



I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen is pro- 
vided for in the inference of things. 

Did you think Life was so tvell provided for, and Death, the 
purport of all Life, is not well provided fort 

Life, life is the tillage, and Death is the harvest according. 

— Whitman. 



(28) 



'^art I 



Tl^e Scientists 



(29) 



Thus we may fairly conjecture that we may be on the 
verge of something like a demonstration that the indi- 
vidual consciousness does survive the death of the body 
by which it was nurtured. 

Prof. N. S. Sfialer, 

Harvard University. 



* * 



'Still seems it strange, that thou should'st live forever? 
Is it less strange, that thou should'st live at all? 
This is a miracle, and that no more." 

— Toung. 



■'30) 



SCIENCE. 

There are many men parading under the banner 
of Science, that belong either on the house-tops or 
in the cellars. Science walks upon the hard ground, 
and if she looks down instead of up, it is that she 
may mark well her course and stumble as seldom as 
possible. She does not dash ahead, nor drive into 
dark alleys. She keeps in the light of approved 
facts. She does not discover things, but proves 
them when they are discovered, if they are true; 
and disproves them if they are false. She is the 
salvation of man, as man, and she alone can give 
him a true and final knowledge of immortality, as 
she, only, can teach him the manner of planting his 
field or baking his daily bread. 

Science does not fall; but those enlisted in her 
cause and marching under the folds of her standard 
grow weary and lag behind and sometimes fall; or 
now and then, even while Science is but an infant 
and her eternal journey barely begun, they proclaim 
with ass-like wisdom — the possible and the impos- 
sible — the what's what; and the limits of human un- 
derstanding. They halt, for they are weighted with 
learning; they stumble, fall, and are forgotten; but 
Science moves serenely on. It makes no difference 

(31) 



32 Proofs of Life After Death 

to her whether her gauge is held aloft for the 
moment by an Edison, or a Newton — a railroad 
newsboy, or an organist; or by a Haeckel or a 
Spencer — savant or synthetic philosopher. She has 
neither hopes nor fears, and she seeks only the truth. 

Not more than thirty years ago a certain distin- 
guished member of the French Academy of Sci- 
ences, an accomplished and highly-educated man — 
for otherwise he could not have been a member of 
that select and noted body — arose before his col- 
leagues and pronounced the Edison phonograph, 
which you can now hear on every street corner, as 
nothing more than an acoustic illusion; that after 
a close examination he could find nothing in the 
invention but ventriloquism. It was impossible, 
acc.ording to his idea, to admit that mere metal could 
perform the function of the human voice. That 
scientist is to-day either forgotten, or what is worse, 
laughed at. 

As a fine example of how a person of high intel- 
lectuality, a man of great brilliancy and genius, and 
living in the light of modern thought can forget 
the infancy of Science and Knowledge, and say: 
"This we cannot learn; in that direction we have 
reached the end of the road; the wall can never be 
scaled," and so on, vv^e quote the following from the 
London correspondent of the New York Tribune: 

"London, Aug. i8. — The Rev. Dr. Gunsauliis, of Chi- 
cago, has created a profound impression by his preach- 



Science 33 

ing in Dr. Parker's pulpit in the City Temple. In the 
course of a sermon in which was shown how vain was 
man's effort to span the mighty distance between earth 
and heaven and discover the secret of the Almighty 
Hame, the preacher for a moment descended from his 
poetic plane and with dramatic outspokenness unfamil- 
iar to frequenters of the City Temple actually excited 
the listeners into a demonstration of applause." 

If such men as Dr. Gunsaulus cannot look for- 
ward, they might at least look backward, and from 
what they see coming up the few initial centuries of 
man's intellectual development, judge by these 
observations of the possibilities of the future; or 
judge not at all. Better yet would be the optimistic 
and nobler thought of Professor Sidgwick, the first 
President of the Society for Psychical Research, the 
patriarch and pride of Trinity College: — 

"I sometimes feel^ with somewhat of a profound 
hope and enthusiasm, that the function of the Eng- 
lish mind, with its uncompromising matter-of-fact- 
ness, will be to put the final question to the uni- 
verse with a solid, passionate determination to be 
answered which must come to something." 

When railroads were first projected the idea was 
pronounced ridiculous. Scientists brought forward 
the reasons for their impracticability by speaking 
of the inertia of matter, the tenacity of metals, and 
of the resistance of the air. It was less. than seventy 
years ago that these noted men claimed the railway 



34 Proofs of Life After Death 

could furnish no advantages to travelers, excepting 
possibly for short journeys. To-day the great 
Oriental Express thunders out of Paris and over 
their graves in its flight to Constantinople, at a 
speed of sixty miles an hour. 

And Science moves steadily forward. 

It is the opinion of many thoughtful people — 
among them some of the best known and most 
eminent scientists — that the question of life after 
death is a demonstrable proposition, that it is 
already fairly proven, but that it awaits the amassed, 
severely tested and systemized knowledge that is 
first and always essential to effect a universal con- 
viction. 



The Scientists. 

DR. CESARE LOMBROSO t t t 

Excuse brevity, owing to my absence from my 
country. The question you put to me is not one 
that has, as yet, been solved with scientific certainty. 
But there is a great probability now given us 
through psychical and spiritistic researches, that 
there is a continued existence of the soul after death, 
preserving a weak identity, to which the persistent 
soul can add new life and growth from the surround- 
ing media. 

DR. PAUL JOIRE t t t 

Excuse me for replying to your letter in French, 
as I am not sufficiently familiar with English.^ It is 
with pleasure that I communicate to you the con- 
clusion I have reached in my studies upon the exist- 
ence of an after-life. 

First. We have a foundation for admitting the 
value of human reason. Man judges of all that sur- 
rounds him by means of reason, that is to say he 
admits a priori the correctness of his deductions; 
for instance, the quality of bodies such as color, 
shape, density, weight, is nothing more than the 
deduction of our reason after the impression has 
been received by our senses. 

1 The French translations in "The Proofs of Life After Death- 
are by Mr. J. Delmotte. 

(35) 



36 Proofs of Life After Death 

Second. The theory of materialism does not 
exist, or is rather a war of words, for otherwise it 
would be an absurdity, for there is no effect with- 
out cause. Go as far back of the origin of the 
world and of nature as you please, reaching the cel- 
lula or the single vibration, and you find that this 
original entity has had a cause, which is the first 
cause. This first cause is a force; it cannot even 
be called a vibration, as a vibration implies a force 
that produces it. This force must always have 
existed, otherwise the force itself would recognize 
the existence of another first cause. 

Furthermore the first cause always exists, as the 
movement that we more especially call in this world 
life always exists, and all movement ceases when 
the cause or force which produces it ceases to exist. 

This cause or the initial force is intelligent, for a 
force can only produce that which it contains within 
itself. Apparent order can originate from a regular, 
but not from an intelligent, force; for instance: — a 
regular current can produce regular crystallization 
and petrifications, but identical reproductions are 
always its limit. 

Going to a higher degree, the vegetable kingdom 
shows us more complex organization, but the re- 
productions, although of a more delicate character, 
are of the same kind or identical. The animal king- 
dom presents a more perfect organization; in it we 



The Scientists 37 

already find instinct, but instinct is always the same 
for the same species. 

In man one finds intelligence which even in the 
smallest degree is above what we find in the most 
perfect animal. The purity of intelligence is only 
accessible to man (geometrical reasoning). The 
variety of its productions, such as invention of things 
dififering from all those which have now existed — 
intelligent deduction made through observations 
and reasoning — works of art with infinite variations, 
all pointing to an ideal, although in different chan- 
nels. Ideal exists only in man. 

Two things result from such reasoning: — first, 
that the force which created man is an intelligent 
force; second, that man is distinguished from all 
other beings in nature by intelligence. 

The force which has created man, being intelli- 
gent, must follow its work of order and organization 
beyond the narrow limits of nature which are known 
to us by means of the senses we now possess, viz: 
reason of order and justice, which must repair the 
inequalities of life. It must not be objected here 
that all men have not got equally delicate senti- 
ments, equally fine senses, and consequently that 
they do not feel equally as much the privations and 
pains of life nor enjoy its joys and pleasures in the 
same fashion. Physiologically and anatomically all 
men are the same; they are organized for the same 
aspiration, the same happiness, although all of them 



38 Proofs of Life After Death 

do not find it here; they must perfect themselves 
later and become able to attain them, otherwise 
the aspirations for an ideal, for happiness, for the 
infinite which exists in man, and which cannot be 
satisfied in this life, would have no reason to exist. 

It can be demonstrated experimentally that there 
is in man a principle which differs from that in a 
material body. 

Telepathic phenomena show us the direct influ- 
ence of one spirit on another without any physical 
or material communication from the outside. 

Mental suggestion, the indisputable reality of 
which was demonstrated by my own experiments 
a few years ago, proves that it is possible to com- 
municate amongst men without having recourse to 
the senses or to any other physical process. 

The spirit of man progresses every day as his 
bodily forces decline, and far from growing old, it 
broadens, develops and fortifies itself day by day. 
MedicaPobservation shows that when, at a given 
time, the organ whose use is to bring in evidence 
this intelligence is no longer apt to fulfill its func- 
tions, it is not intelligence that disappears, but the 
link that connected it in its relations with the out- 
side world; the phenomenon that takes place is anal- 
ogous to that of sleep. 

The conclusions to be arrived at from these philo- 
sophical, scientific and experimental considerations 
are: — 



The Scientists 39 

First. That the intelligent principle which out- 
lives corporeal nature exists in man. 

Second. That in his future life the principle 
commonly called the soul preserves to a great meas- 
ure the qualities and dispositions which dominated it 
in its terrestrial life. 

Third. That this supra-terrestrial life is under 
the influence of the life in this world, which prepares 
it for the after-life. The soul ought always to reach 
a certain development, and by elevating itself on this 
earth above everything that lowers it and brings it 
close to matter it will be much easier attaining per- 
fection. 

These, dear sir, are considerations briefly quoted 
from my studies and experiments. 

BISHOP H. C. POTTER t t t 

Apart from Revelation, I do not know any argu- 
ment likely to be of more service to you than that 
of Professor N. S. Shaler, of Harvard University, in 
his volume "The Individual; A Study of Life and 
Death."^ 

PROF. N. S. SHALER t t t 

The naturalist, using this term to designate all 
those who are intimately concerned with scientific 
inquiry, differs from his fellows of the more ancient 
employments in no other regard save that he has 

1 D. Appleton & Co., New York. 



40 Proofs of Life After Death 

learned, or at least should have learned, certain rules 
based on experience, which serve somewhat to 
diminish the risk of error in the judgment and some- 
thing of technical skill in the application of his 
resources. Thus he should know how to verify his 
data and to criticise his conclusions somewhat better 
than the mechanic or merchant ordinarily learns to 
do. As a matter of fact, however, there is not much 
difference in the measure of the verifying and crit- 
icising skill among the abler men of any of the walks 
of life. Except for the craft knowledge, the better, 
men in the economic field are as truly men of sci- 
ence as their brethren to whom that term is com- 
monly limited. 

The results of the last hundred years of active 
inquiry have been again and again to double the 
mass of information which has been gathered in the 
centuries since men began to question Nature. But 
all those who see beyond the surface are forced to 
recognize the truth that the proportion of what is 
known to that which is knowable, but undiscov- 
ered, is in nowise diminished for all the researches 
that have been made. 

The most admirable result of natural inquiry has 
been the conception that all the occurrences of the 
visible universe are related in the manner of ante- 
cedent and consequent, or, as we say, as cause and 
effect; that nothing Hes without the enchainment of 
actions. Along with this has come the conviction, 



The Scientists 41 

eminently well founded, that the energy involved in 
action is never lost, but only changes its form of 
activity; so that when a given amount of water rises 
into the air by virtue of the heat which the sun has 
applied to it, it returns the same amount of energy 
to the air or the earth in its condensation, in the 
friction it receives in falling or in striking upon the 
surface. 

The concept of causation by application of energy 
passing onward from event to event appears to be 
so implicit that it leads the mind to assume a knowl- 
edge as to the nature of the actions involved, which 
it does not really possess. Thus we almost instinct- 
ively assume that, because we perceive the continu- 
ity of the events, we take account of what really 
occurs in these actions. * * * 

As I look across my room, my sight ranges 
through the air. This air is instinctively postulated 
(assumed) as simple in its nature, for the reason that 
I see through it and behold nothing therein. My 
knowledge tells me that it is in fact a plexus (center) 
of actions and qualities so vast and complicated that 
if I saw it with complete understanding I should 
surely know more than all that has yet been learned 
of matter. For the moment this critical view makes 
a strong impression on my mind, one so great that it 
seems likely to endure; but, when after a moment of 
this thinking I look again, there is the same appar- 
ent emptiness, and with it the same suggestion of 



42 Proofs of Life After Death 

simplicity. * ^k * jj^ j^-g scientific aspect this 
conception of the infinite order about us is not only 
very modern, but has been attained by few, and held 
only in rare moments, when the constructive imag- 
ination dealing with the data of science enables us 
to see dimly, yet effectively, how false is the impres- 
sion which the commonplace view gives of the 
truths of Nature, and how a truer understanding, 
such as we now obtain only in glimpses, is to be the 
heritage of our successors of the larger time. * * * 

To those who hold to the illogical idea that we 
can observe all that happens in even the simplest 
natural fact, the process of death may, in the ordi- 
nary form, appear as a sufficient basis for denying 
the possibility of immortality. 

If the discreet naturalist were asked how he could 
conceive the survival of the intelligence to be 
effected after the machinery by which it had appar- 
ently been engendered had disappeared, his answer 
might be somewhat as follows: He would first call 
attention to the fact that in the process of repro- 
duction all the experience of the antecedent life is 
passed on from generation to generation, over what 
we may term a molecular bridge. Thus, in the case 
of man, a tiny mass of protoplasm, imponderably 
small, carries on from parent to child the body, the 
mind, all indeed that the predecessors in tens of 
thousands of specific forms and unimaginable mil- 
lions of individuals have won of enduring profit 
from their experience. 



The Scientists 43 

Therefore, even within the narrow limits of the 
known there is evidence that the seed from which an 
individual intelligence may be evolved can be effect- 
ively guarded and nurtured in the keeping of an 
exceedingly small body of matter. In a word, the 
facts of generation show us that under certain con- 
ditions life, as complicated potentially (possibly) as 
that which passes away from the body at death, may 
reside and be cradled in states of matter which are, 
as compared with the mature body, very simple. It 
is difficult to resist the conviction that it is in 
the process of generation, in the keeping of atoms, 
molecules, or whatever else be the ultimate form of 
the transmitting agents. 

Be it understood that this is not an argument to 
show that the spirit of man goes forth in some part' 
of the dust of the body. The point is, that the 
known properties of matter are so complex and our 
ignorance as to the range of these properties so 
great, that the facts of death cannot be made a safe 
basis for a conclusion as to the survival of the intel- 
ligence. 

To the argument that all we know of intelligence 
is limited to what v/e find incarnate in animals of 
various degrees, and that all the supposed evidence 
going to show, either the survival of definite indi- 
vidualities after death or the existence of intellectual 
powers in Nature, has fallen before the assaults of 
science, the careful naturalist has still to object that 
the proof of these propositions is lacking. * * * 



44 Proofs of Life After Death 

It is a fact, that in the organic life of this world 
but one series, that which leads to man, has attained 
to a high measure of true intellect. * * * It is 
also evident that the possibility of man's develop- 
ment has rested on the successive institution of 
species in linked order, reaching down at least to 
the level of the lower vertebrate life, and back to a 
time at least as remote as the Devonian period. If, 
in this succession of tens of thousands of species^ 
living through a series of millions of years, any of 
these links of the human chain had been broken, if 
any one of the species had failed to give birth to its 
successor, the chance of the development of man 
would have been -lost. 

So, when we consider what the struggle for exist- 
ence means and has meant through all the ages, we 
are forced by this evidence to believe that there has 
most likely been a control of an intellectual nature 
over the events. It may be that the result is merely 
fortuitous (chance); but, if so, it must have been 
almost as one to infinity against the chance that the 
summit should have been attained in man. * * * 

If we fancy a being of an appropriate intelligence 
beholding the outset of the organic series on its long- 
journey through the ages, foreseeing the intellectual 
goal, and on the way to it the innumerable chances 
of accident, which would leave it short of the 
supreme success, we may well imagine that this 
success would have appeared to be practically unat- 



The .Scientists 45 

tamable without the guidance of a controlling 
power, intent on the end. It is true that any one of 
the steps toward man, say the first, may conceivably 
have been won by chance, and that the probability 
of the second fit advance occurring would not be 
lessened by the first success, and so on to the end of 
the series; but the chance that the happy casts 
should have been continued without a fatally 
destructive break would have appeared to our sup- 
posed observer as essentially impossible. 

To put the matter in simpler form, let us compare 
the construction of the series which led up to man 
to the process of throwing dice. The chance of 
throwing the bits so that double sixes appear is rel- 
atively small, as trial will show. Yet it is certainty 
itself compared to the chance that any group would 
by hazard develop toward man. Now if on a second 
throwing of the dice double sixes again appeared, 
any critical mind would begin to suspect that they 
were loaded; and if on hundreds of casts a like 
result invariably appeared, he would have the most 
absolute proof that can possibly be had to show 
that chance did not determine the occurrences, or, 
in other words, he would be compelled to support 
the existence of some kind of control leading to the 
particular result. This is, in effect, what we find in 
the development of the series of animals which leads 
to man. If we are to judge that work by our intelli- 
gence, we are led to the conclusion that the succes- 



46 Proofs of Life After Death 

sion was determined in substantially the same way 
that we determine the results of our own contriv- 



ances. 



■if. ■Jj: ■^ 



The facts connected with the organic approach 
to man afford what is perhaps the strongest argu- 
ment, or at least the most condensed, in favor of the 
opinion that there is an intelligent principle in con- 
trol of the universe. To those who have devoted 
themselves to natural inquiry, at the same time 
keeping their minds open to the larger impressions 
which that field affords, there generally comes a 
conviction as to the essential rationality of the oper- 
ations. They have to consider facts which cannot 
be otherwise explained, except on the supposition 
that a mighty kinsman of man is at work behind it 
all. Again and again the naturalist feels that this or 
that feature of the order exactly satisfies him, just as 
he feels that the turn of a phrase or the shape of a 
thought in an author is after his own mind. In fact, 
to the inquirer this recognition of himself, of his 
own intellectual quality in the events he is consider- 
ing, gives the sense of the highest pleasure which 
his occupation affords. By no means all those who 
successfully make researches perceive this quality of 
their work, yet I believe it is present with them all. 
Nor is it limited to the naturalist. Much the same 
state of mind is afforded by the contemplative state 
of mind with which one views the beauty of the 
landscape, of the flower, in fact any of the many 



The Scientists 47 

expressions of the realm. The joy we have in those 
exercises of the intelligence arises in large measure 
from the fact that we feel the kinsman in the thing 
we behold. 

The foregoing reasons * * * show at least 
the general method by which the naturaHst may be 
led to the conclusion that the universe is in control 
of power, in ways like unto the mind of man. The 
judgment does not lead to the assumption that the 
likeness is complete. At most it gives little save 
hints as to the measure of the kinship. But, 
imperfect as is the hypothesis, it is the only solution 
of the facts which in any measure satisfies them. It 
is more rational than any supposition which excludes 
intelligence from a pervading and controlling posi- 
tion in the universe. Such, then, are the points con- 
cerning the matter of fact as to the immortality of 
the soul. * * * 

The only direct evidence that can claim scientific 
inquiry, which goes to show the persistence of the 
individual after the body dies, is that afiforded by the 
so-called occult phenomena; by the alleged appear- 
ance, of spirits, or the communication with what 
appear to some inquirers to be the minds of the 
departed. 

Notwithstanding their urgent disinclination to 
meddle with or be muddled by the problems of spir- 
itualism, the men of science have a natural interest 
in the inquiries of the few true observers who are 



48 Proofs of Life After Death 

dredging in that turbid sea. Trusting to the evident 
scientific faithfulness of these hardy explorers, it 
appears evident that they have brought up from that 
deep sea certain facts which, though shadowed by 
doubt, indicate the persistence of the individual con- 
sciousness after death. It has, moreover, to be con- 
fessed that these few, and as yet imperfect, observa- 
tions are fortified by the fact that through all the 
ages of his contact with Nature man has firmly held 
to the notion that the world was peopled with dis- 
embodied individualities which could appeal to his 
own intelligence. Such a conviction is itself worth 
something, though it be little; supported by any 
critical evidence it becomes of much value. Thus 
v/e may fairly conjecture that we may be on the 
verge of something like a demonstration that the 
individual consciousness does survive the death of 
the body by which it was nurtured. 

E. DUCLAUX t t t 

Excuse me for not being able to help you in your 
investigation. I have no scientific opinion regard- 
ing the questions you put. I mean, no opinion that 
rests on anything but personal beliefs. Besides, I 
think that everybody is in about the same position 
and that any reasons that may be brought forth in 
favor of one's opinion are only good for the person 
that brings them forth, and that they cannot impress 
the listener; they are therefore not scientific reasons. 



The Scientists 49 

L. BACLE t t t 

I am very glad to give you the opinion you ask 
of me. 

In my eyes, the survival of the human soul must 
be considered like data resulting necessarily from 
general scientific laws which we know now. 

We know that matter is indestructible and that it 
cannot be created, that it transforms itself only by 
passing through various combinations, and that it is 
equally true so for the physical forces known to us, 
such as heat, light and electricity. 

Life forces, and in particular the human soul, 
should be considered as analogous forces; they con- 
sequently participate in the permanency of these 
forces; and are capable perhaps of transformation 
after death, but are not destructible. Should it be 
said that the transformation might afifect the con- 
sciousness, I would answer that consciousness is 
necessarily recovered as all the doings and acts of 
our life are registered in the Universe; the luminous 
or dark rays which have been the witnesses of these 
doings and acts carry them away to the celestial 
space, where one can find again the image of deeds 
accomplished many years ago. 

Nothing is lost in nature, and less than all other 
forces the soul, which is the author of deeds and acts 
thus preserved; it seems therefore that at a certain 
moment of its evolution the soul ought to be able 
to recall memories of the present life, should they 



50 Proofs of Life After Death 

have been effaced, and in this lies the principal ele- 
ment of reward or punishment in the ultra-terrestrial 
life. 

Besides, I have already expressed these ideas in a 
pamphlet: La Vie Future Devant la Science (The 
Hereafter and Science), which has been favorably- 
received, and I take the liberty of asking you to 
kindly accept a copy of the same, which I address to 
you under registered cover. 

DR. JAMES R. NICHOLS t t t 

We are unmistakably involved in much mystery 
regarding what is to be; and to many the impression 
of m5^stery is so overpowering that it engenders 
doubt — doubt as to the possibilities of a future life. 
The mind insensibly gravitates towards agnosticism 
unless upheld by religious faith and a close study of 
the nature and needs of the soul. We have import- 
ant lessons taught in what has been accomplished by 
scientific research. The faithless and the doubting 
may with profit turn to the records of science; they 
will there learn that wonders and mysteries great 
almost as those possible to be realized in an 
exchange of worlds, have been brought within the 
comprehension and control of mind. 

Do we not every day converse with unseen friends 
long distances away; do we not recognize their 
familiar voices, in homes separated from us by rivers, 
woods, and mountains? These voices come out of 



The Scientists 51 

the darkness, guided by a frail wire which science 
provides as a pathway. Even when the curtain of 
night is drawn about us the voices are heard, and we 
have not the shadow of a doubt as to their integrity 
and identity. 

And further, have we not wonders of sight which 
startle us by their significance? Is it not true that 
when abroad we are open to the view of unseen 
observers long distances from us, and our every act 
and movement known? The excellence of optical 
instruments is such that I have seen the motion of 
the lips of persons in conversation, while sitting on a 
house balcony three miles distant, the observed, of 
course, wholly unconscious of being seen by anyone. 

If our friends in this life, dead to us (hidden as 
they are by the shroud of space), can be seen, and we 
can hear their voices, their shouts of laughter, the 
words of the hymns the)^ sing, the cries of the little 
ones in the mother's arms, is it very absurd to antici- 
pate a time when those dead to us by the dissolution 
of the body may, by some unknown telephony, send 
to us voices from a realm close at hand, but hidden 
from mortal vision? 

PROF. H. L HARTZOG t t t 

I believe in the continuation of the existence of 
the soul for the reason that science teaches and 
proves that nothing can be annihilated. 



52 Proofs of Life After Death 

DR. W. D. BAYLEY t t t 

Your inquiry recalls a nocturnal experience in the 
country soijie years ago, where I took part in a 
search for a lost child. Stumbling about in a dark 
woods with only the little patch of illumination 
afforded by a small lamp, each one of us threaded 
our several ways through the tangled underbrush. 
Presently someone would come along, flash his lan- 
tern in your face, ask "Any signs yet?" and then dis- 
appear in the darkness. 

You are holding up your lamp. I see your face, 
earnest and anxious ; you are asking the great ques- 
tion! 

And how I wish I could answer it in some positive 
way. I too am looking at vacant chairs! Yet is 
not the search being made more earnestly than ever 
before; and methodically for the first time? True 
we have not found the lost child, but is there not a 
little footprint in the soft earth here and there? Is 
there not a bit of ribbon or fluttering fragment of 
torn dress to encourage us to redouble our efforts in 
this great inquiry? 

On that juvenile shelf in my mental playroom I 
have long since placed, alongside of boyhood's toys 
and fables, the pleasant and curious fictions of ortho- 
doxy. Respectfully, too, for sometimes I look them 
over wonderingly. Is there nothing left that I may 
take down and find room for it in the library of mod- 
ern thought? Can I not rescue that bred-in-the- 
bone longing for the continuity of individual life? 



The Scientists 53 

So far as I am concerned, the endeavor to solve 
this latter question has occupied, as a hobby, the 
spare moments of a very busy life. At the present I 
am inclined to answer the question in the affirma- 
tive; and for three reasons, two of which you will 
claim and I will grant, are presumptive only, and the 
third perhaps immature. However they may be 
criticised, let them be stated for what they are 
worth, (i) Life as we know it has maintained a 
steady progressive development from the less to the 
more complex; the whole process being jealously 
guarded (by something) without regard to cost or 
sacrifice. Twentieth century man is the result 
(apparently) of determined, progressive, uncompro- 
mising, relentless beginnings, the ends of which 
could not have been foretold or in any way preun- 
derstood. 

Was all this labor, through unestimated periods of 
time, expended simply to produce a poor, weak, 
vacillating creature, living a life of cramped aspira- 
tions and unsatisfied yearnings through what the 
clock empirically counts as a few miserable years? 
I have raised my cry in the wilderness; is there no 
cultivated country? 

(2) Such reflections naturally lead us to inquire 
as to what is known of man's mental constitution, 
and its relationship with his physical being. Such 
knowledge as is furnished by anatomy, physiology, 
pathology, introspective psychology, neuro-physiol- 



54 Proofs of Life After Death 

ogy (the so-called "New psychology") and the the- 
ory of psycho-physical relationship (philosophy). 
Here the ultimate dictum of science is, that there 
occurs in the brain complicated metitive (changing) 
activity of waste and repair, molecular disturbances 
which may be inferred, news-currents which may be 
measured; and that these are in some way associ- 
ated (not conceivably as causes) with thinking, feel- 
ing and volition. By no process of reasoning can we 
think of these as effects, but rather we view them as 
concomitants. Thought and feeling are not to be 
expressed in term-s of matter or modes of motion; 
and the assumption that mind is a productive func- 
tion of the brain falls to pieces in the presence of the 
facts! 

If, then, our inner consciousness expresses the 
intuitive craving for life beyond death, if life is 
meaningless and morality madness, without immor- 
tality, if the facts of physical and mental science as 
far as known to-day are at least non-committal with 
reference to the possibility of a spiritual existence, 
are we not justified in our hope that something will 
be added to our knowledge by that only remaining 
resource — psychical research? 

When Franklin hung his key on the kitestring 
here in our city, the wise folk smiled and asked, 
"What's the use?" No need for an answer to this 
question in our day; and if we study carefully and 
impartially the accumulating records of the S. P. R. 



The Scientists 55 

I believe we will find there a key which already will 
unlock more than did that of our only Benjamin! If 
there is not clear light, at least there are pathways 
through the darkness ; and some of us believe that it 
is only another step when the vanguard of our 
patient explorers will hand to us the illumined proofs 
of immortality. 

DR. VISANI SCOZZI t t t 

I have been for twenty years a physician, and my 
scientific knowledge has been formed by the mate- 
rialistic doctrines towards which I have always been 
attracted, from the analytical and objective inclina- 
tion of my nature. 

By the study of hypnotism I have been obliged to 
recognize that the human individuality may be sep- 
arated by degrees in its essential prerogatives; and 
that fact is to be referred to a functional stratifica- 
tion of the gray substance of the brain. This 
hypothesis could contain also the faculty of the pro- 
jecting, jutting out, of the nerve force from the 
organism. 

But the exteriorization of the sensibility, of the 
m.otricity and of the plasticity, which occur during 
the hypnotic trance, have shown that those preroga- 
tives do not belong, as intimate origin, to the physi- 
cal body; but they manifest themselves in a way to 
seem that they have as substratum another element, 
which is called the fluidical body. 

We can add, that this fluidical body makes itself 



56 Proofs of Life After Death 

visible to the subject himself, who exteriorizes it 
from his own organism; and it is also seen by a few 
sensitive persons, or those where sensitiveness is 
induced, to come out from the organism of others. 
This fluidical body may also be sensitive in different 
ways to everyone, when it manifests itself as a 
motricity and plasticity power. It has also been 
photographed. 

At any rate, belong to it all the functions of life of 
relation, or psychical functions, while to the organic 
body belongs the vegetative power. It shows the 
fact that intelligence superintends at every phenom- 
enon produced out of the body during the time it is 
in lethargy, that is, in the most complete inertia of 
movement, of sensibility and of consciousness. 

To have been obliged to admit these facts of 
unquestionable objectivity, has brought doubt to 
every conscientious and impartial observer of the 
sufficiency and breadth of our present science. In 
fact, our physiology is obliged to remain at the 
function of thought; and the psychology, so-called 
positive, takes up again and, with more courage, but 
with not greater profit, the work that physiology 
does not know or does not dare to attack. 

The fluidical body, instead, presents a new sub- 
stratum of functionality, more adequate, because 
thinner and more homogeneous, by which physiol- 
ogy will find itself provided with a sure foundation to 
analyze more intimately the functions of thought. 



The Scientists 57 

By virtue of this honest repentance, the investiga- 
tor finds himself obliged to leave the old clogs, that 
seemed already the last word of science, and to go 
on with courage, but caution, to a dominion of new 
observations and of new doctrines. 

There he finds then, that the medianity reveals to 
us, the intelligence which superintends the phenom- 
ena of the trance is not that of the subject, or of the 
medium, nor that of the persons at the sitting. From 
this observation he has a new proof that the intelli- 
gent fluidical body, or the soul, is sufficiently inde- 
pendent of the organism to be able to continue its 
existence and identity after the dissolution of the 
body. 

At this point the objective observation leaves us; 
and there begins the speculative deduction. These 
animic entities represent an indestructible unity, or 
they represent a temporary residue of synthetic life, 
which has to dissolve in its turn; or do they repre- 
sent intelligence allied to humanity, without having 
belonged to humanity? 

Scientifically, the question cannot be resolved on 
all sides; but the conception of evolution obliges us 
to admit that the individuality is not destructible, it 
being the product of evolution. Evolution is, 
according to Spencer, but differentiation for spe- 
cialization and for individualization; to destroy the 
result of this differentiation is to destroy evolution. 

About the conviction of the identity of a spirit, it 



58 Proofs of Life After Death 

cannot be, for the present, but personal, by direct 
proofs which one has obtained here and there. At 
any rate, this identity is very rare, and it is often of 
illusion and deception. 

All this I have developed extensively in my book 
"Medianita." 

C. C. MASSEY t t t 

Death, as such, does not release us from time, but 
it brings to inward consciousness all the relation we 
have outwardly gained in our earthly incarnation. 
Death is the in-breathing moment of respiration. 
Birth is the out-breathing. 

The idea of radical unity being that of essential 
solidarity, it is easy to see that long prior to the 
developed consciousness of that truth, it must occa- 
sionally announce itself in sensible or emotional 
experience. Such an experience is telepathy. The 
explanation of telepathy as transmission of ethereal 
vibrations from point to point, presupposes the 
direction of the waves, their "address" to the per- 
cipient subject in particular (or at least the select 
reaction of that subject on the diffused impact), and 
therefore the pre-existing special rapport. And it is 
that tie thus evidenced as real and objective which is 
the significant fact. As a rule, while we are in the 
body, these real connections are known either not 
at all, or only ideally. The physical body is a sep- 
arator, insisting as far as it can that all communica- 
tion shall be the external which itself mediates. But 



The Scientists 59 

psychical excitement at a certain pitch finds the 
vital community where that has been already 
mediated in an intimate consciousness, and even 
sometimes where it has not, as in the case of great 
collective agitations, which reach deeper. There- 
fore, I think, telepathy testifies to the condition of 
our survival, because to a societary consciousness a 
little below the surface. 

DR. DUREN J. WARD t t t 

My opinion as to the future existence of man is 
based on two main lines of investigation — one phys- 
ical, the results of modern science on the subject of 
matter and force — that "matter is a mode of motion 
of energy," that it is therefore not a thing, but a 
condition, that it is varying m.odes of motion of the 
real ether or spirit substratum of being, that the 
elements are various types and speeds of ethereal 
activity, that life is a newer and later element, that 
soul is a still later and consciously differentiated one, 
that it partakes in far higher degree of the ultimate 
and eternal nature of Being, and is therefore in its 
image. 

The other is along the lines of psychology. The 
larger portion of it is based on the somewhat fruitful 
investigations of the Society for Psychical Research. 
The first monistic and spiritual result of modern 
thought forms a basis for such a thought as that of a 
spiritual and continued existence of man. The sec- 
ond takes up all the alleged manifestations of con- 



6o Proofs of Life After Death 

tinued life after death. From these investigations 
there is a considerable residuum of phenomena that 
have no other explanation. 

Other lines of so-called proof have comparatively 
little weight beside these. Dr. John Fisk's exten- 
sion of the "Moral Argument" into biological realms 
has greatly strengthened it. Some one should 
undertake to work it out much more fully. 

DR. THOMSON J. HUDSON t t t 

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter 
asking me to state what I "consider to be the 
strongest reason, or argument, advanced by science 
or philosophy, or by common sense," af^rmative of 
"the continued existence of the soul, or personal 
identity after death;" and in reply I have to say that 
I have elsewhere^ set out at some length my views 
on that question, and the most I can now do will be 
to summarize the leading argument then advanced. 

The fundamental postulate is that — ^There can 
exist no faculty without a function. Or, stated 
more at length — There can exist no faculty of the 
human mind without a normal function to perform 
somewhere, at some time, — in some state of exist- 
ence. 

This postulate will be denied by no one, for its 
opposite is inconceivable — unthinkable. 

If, therefore, it can be shown that man is endowed 



i 



1 See "A Scientific Demonstration of the Future Life." 



The Scientists 6i 

with faculties that perform no normal function in 
this life, it follows that they must be destined for use 
in a future life; a fortiori {{or the stronger reason) 
if they are specially adapted to a disembodied exist- 
ence. 

The facts relied upon to prove that man is 
endowed with such faculties have been developed in 
recent years by Experimental Psychology — largely 
by the Society for Psychical Research. They are, 
first, that man is endowed with a dual mind — or two 
minds^ — or two states of consciousness.^ The latter 
are differentiated by the S. P. R. and designated, 
respectively, as the "subliminal" and the "supralim- 
inal" consciousness. Partly for the sake of a con- 
venient phraseology, but principally because every- 
thing happens as if it were true, I have assumed that 
man is endowed with two minds, and I have desig- 
nated them, respectively, as the "objective" and the 
"subjective," the former being the mind of ordinary 
waking consciousness, and the latter being that 
intelligence which is in evidence when the objective 
mind is in abeyance, as in sleep, or in hypnotism, 
trance, etc. They are so designated because the 
former takes cognizance of the objective world 
solely by means of the five objective or physical 
senses; and the latter because it is the mind which is 
the source of all subjective phenomena. It is evi- 



2 See "The Law of Psychic Phenomena." 

3 See Proceedings S. P. K. 



62 Proofs of Life After Death 

dently the ultimate Ego — the soul. It is certain 
that it represents the primal intelligence of organic 
life, and hence it antedates the objective mind by 
untold millions of years, the latter being the function 
of the brain, and hence the product of organic evo- 
lution.* In a word; the subjective mind is the mind 
of instinct in the lower animals, and the mind of intu- 
ition in man, the difference being one of degree and 
dependent upon the stage of development. 

Each of the two minds is endowed with distinct- 
ive powers not possessed by the other; and each is 
circumscribed by limitations distinctively its own. 
Other faculties are shared by both minds, differing 
only in degree of efficiency and power. The various 
faculties m^ay be classified as follows: 

1. The one faculty or power belonging exclu- 
sively to the objective mind is that of inductive rea- 
soning. That power is wholly wanting in the sub- 
jective mind because it is constantly amenable to 
control by the power of suggestion. In other words, 
it must take its premises from an extraneous source, 
and cannot, therefore, institute an independent 
inquiry by the inductive process of gathering facts 
and estimating their relative values and significance. 

2. The powers shared by the two minds are mem- 
ory and deductive reasoning. But the difference in 
degree is distinctive. Thus, the memory of the sub- 
jective mind is absolute, and potentially (possibly) 



4 See "The Divine Pedigree of Man." 



The Scientists 63 

perfect; while objective memory is limited, depend- 
ing largely upon association of ideas and constant 
refunctioning of brain cells. Deduction is a neces- 
sary concomitant of induction, and hence is pos- 
sessed by the objective mind. Its power is, 
however, limited, whereas the power of deduction 
of the subjective mind is potentially inerrant. 

3. The faculties possessed exclusively by the sub- 
jective mind are the following: (a) Instinct or intui- 
tion, (b) Telepathic powers. (c) Telekinetic 
energy.^ (d) It is the seat of the emotions. 

Not one of the above powers is shared by the 
objective mind in the slightest degree. That which 
is sometimes mistaken for intuition in the objective 
mind is merely rapid induction. But it possesses 
neither telepathic power, telekinetic energy, nor 
emotion. That v/hich is commonly mistaken for 
emotion in the objective mind is objective memory 
reacting upon the subjective mind. The seat of the 
emotions is, nevertheless, in the subjective mind, 
where it existed untold aeons before an objective 
mind was evolved in the process of organic evolu- 
tion. 

It will now be seen that two out of the four above 
enumerated powers perform no normal function in 
this life, namely, telepathy and telekinesis. Neither 
can be exercised in anything like perfection except 



5 Illustrated by the movement of physical objects by mind power 
without physical contact. 



64 • Proofs of Life After Death 

under the most intensely abnormal conditions of the 
body. Nor can they ever be made of any practical 
use in this life. Telepathy — which is the most prom- 
ising — has never served any practical purpose. Nor 
can it be made practically useful as a means of con- 
veying messages, for the reason that, owing to the 
limitations of subjective powers, under the law of 
suggestion, such messages can never be relied upon. 
Besides, it is a very crude and unsatisfactory means 
of communicating intelligence at the best. It is, 
however, a means of conveying intelligence obvi- 
ously adapted to the uses of disembodied souls. To 
what uses telekinesis may be adapted in a disem- 
bodied existence it is impossible to say. But we 
know that it is a purely spiritual power (whether of 
the living or of the dead), and that it is useless on 
this plane of existence. 

Here, then, are two faculties of mind that per- 
form no normal function in this life, one of which is 
obviously adapted to the future life, and the other 
presumably so. 

Again, the perfect memory of the subjective mind 
is absolutely useless here; first, for the reason that 
objective memory is amply sufficient for all our 
earthly needs; and, secondly, because subjective 
memory is not available except under intensely 
abnormal conditions. Its existence, however, is 
indubitable evidence that we shall retain our per- 
sonal identity in the future life, since memory and 



I 



The Scientists 65 

consciousness are the essential requisites to the 
retention of identity. 

Instinct, of course, performs a normal function in 
this life of, the highest possible importance; and so 
may intuition. But the history of mankind shows 
that its highest manifestations pertain to religion 
and the future life. Witness Jesus of Nazareth. 

Intuition being the immediate perception of fun- 
damental and essential truth — first principles or 
laws — antecedent to and independent of reason, 
education or experience, it follows that the utter- 
ances of Jesus on the subject of religion and the 
future life possess great evidential value even from 
the m.ost rigidly scientific standpoint, especially 
since modern science has demonstrated the iner- 
rancy of His intuitions regarding other laws of the 
human soul.® 

Again, taking the future life for granted, it is 
obvious that intuition must supply the place of 
induction, since the soul is destitute of the latter 
power. Induction, in fact, is but a slow and labori- 
ous method of reaching that knowledge of Nature's 
laws which intuition grasps by immediate apprehen- 
sion. It is especially adapted to a physical environ- 
ment, where doubt and uncertainty seem to be 
inherent in the nature of things. In other words, it 
is essential in a stage of existence where everything 
is in a formative condition. Intuition, on the other 

6 See "The Law of Psychic Phenomena." 



66 Proofs of Life After Death 

hand, seems to be adapted to the intellectual wants 
of a higher realm, a more perfect environment — a 
world of truth and righteousness. 

Recurring now to the fundamental postulate — 
"there can exist no faculty without a function" — I 
submit that I have shown that man possesses facul- 
ties that perform no normal function in this life. 
The inevitable conclusion is that those faculties must 
perform their functions in a future life — in a higher 
plane of existence. And I have vastly reinforced the 
argument by showing that the subjective faculties 
are especially adapted to a disembodied existence. 
Not one faculty is lacking to constitute a perfect 
manhood — an entity essentially God-like in its every 
attribute. Thus, intuition, inerrant deductive pow- 
ers and a potentially perfect memory, constitute a 
mental equipment that is literally God-like, for that 
by infinite extension of its powers it would become 
omniscient. An infinite extension of the power of 
telekinesis would constitute omnipotence — the 
dynamic spiritual energy that assembles matter and 
builds the material universe. Telepathic powers, by 
infinite extension, would constitute omnipresence. 
And the afifectional emotions, purified, legitimated, 
and infinitely extended, would be infinite and uni- 
versal love. 

It will thus be seen that every attribute of the 
Deity exists, potentially or in embryo, in the sub- 
jective mind of man. But in this life that mind is 



The Scientists 67 

submerged below the threshold of normal conscious- 
ness, so that its very existence is discoverable only 
by means of pathological conditions of the body. 
But experimental psychology has at length revealed 
its presence, and, to some extent, defined its powers 
and limitations; so that we may now study the prob- 
lems of the human soul by the process of induction. 
A psychic fact is as much a fact as is a granite 
mountain; and it has been by careful study and 
scientific experiment that the facts herein set forth 
have been revealed and made a part of the inductive 
equipment of the science of the twentieth century. 

The facts are well known to every intelligent stu- 
dent of psychic science; The conclusions are my 
own. But I submit that I am justified, upon a careful 
analysis of man's subjective faculties thus revealed, 
in holding that they proclaim his Divine origin, and 
enable us to declare that if Nature is constant there 
cannot have been created such a manhood without 
a mission, such powers without a purpose, such fac-' 
ulties without a function, other than those in evi- 
dence in our earthly environment. 

What the nature of the future life may be no one 
this side of the grave can know with certainty. But, 
since there can be no faculty without a function, the 
same analysis of our subjective faculties reveals the 
fact that we shall enter the future life well equipped 
for a highly intellectual and social existence. 



68 Proofs of Life After Death 

PROF. A. BRUNOT t t t 

Your question honors me by placing me in the 
ranks of thinkers and educators whose opinion may 
carry some weight. But I must tell you in all frank- 
ness that, brought face to face with death through a 
cruel loss, the crudest, I think, that one can have, 
that of an adored young wife, I have never found 
even the shadow of a reason that would lead me to 
believe I would find her again, preserving in any 
manner or form her personality. 

Of all arguments that philosophy has amassed 
since Plato for the purpose of reaching the affirma- 
tive positively, criticism has long since destroyed 
them until nothing, absolutely nothing, is left. As 
regards science, experimental psychical researches 
are so little advanced that one cannot yet reach any 
conclusion, and thus far it looks to me extremely 
difficult to separate positive result and various 
experiments from the charlatanism of exploiters of 
public credulity. 

Less ambitious than yourself, I believe that the 
immortality that awaits us is simply the living token 
or souvenir and often deep set of our acts and 
thoughts which we leave to our children, to our 
families, to our countrymen, or, as befalls to some 
more fortunate, to the whole world. If instead ot 
living only for ourselves we have given ourselves 
up in some form or other to the common interest of 
progress, we survive through our example, some- 



The Scientists 69 

times through our works. Our virtues leave a seed 
which brings forth others, and thus if not our per- 
sonaHty, at least everything which must survive for 
the good of humanity is perpetuated, 'The rest, 
which is the childish desire of prolonging one's per- 
son through a privilege which is not granted to any 
living being, is in my eyes only a dream worthy of 
the times of primitive religions inspired, if properly 
analyzed, with ideas of an inferior morality, still 
bearing the imprints of egotism. 

EDMOND PERKIER t t t 

I reply very willingly to your query relating to the 
survival of the soul. In the latter part of my book, 
"Les Colonies Animals et la Formation des Organ- 
isms,"^ which was published some years ago, I 
showed how it was possible to harmonize the 
hypothesis of the survival of the soul and of the per- 
sistency of its personality with the scientific concep- 
tions of to-day; learned men cannot longer avoid 
reverting to philosophy. The work contains a the- 
ory of the genesis of personality and it is from this 
theory that I was led to investigate the question of 
the persistency of our Ego after death. 

SIMON NEWCOMB t t t 

In answer to your request, I am sorry to say that 
I have never been able to think out any satisfactory 
theory on the subject of the continuance of the con- 
scious soul of man after death. 



1 Brentaco's. Paris. 



70 Proofs of Life After Death 

PROF. D. R. DUNGAN t t t 

I. Science does not recognize annihilation. If 
eternity can be predicated of matter it certainly can 
be of mind, or spirit. 

II. Many cases are reported in which men have 
gone down into death, and have returned to con- 
sciousness and life and have lived for many years. 
They report their consciousness during the time, 
thus indicating that the changes of the body did not 
blot out the mind. 

III. A man standing on the bow of a boat watch- 
ing a wave in its approach, remains till it has passed, 
and he sees it no longer. But you cannot convince 
him that the wave ceased as soon as it passed 
from his view. The same causes or occasions which 
brought the wave he believes will continue to carry 
It on. 

IV. All nature announces the existence of God, 
who is the author of our being. It is unreasonable 
to suppose that He planted longings for immortality 
and then failed to provide the immortality. 

V. My confidence in an immortality is founded in 
the Scriptures. I believe that it can be reduced to 
a demonstration that Christ rose from the dead, and 
showed us the fact that there is another state, that 
He brought life and immortality to light in that way. 

VI. The Scriptures everywhere teach the immor- 
tality or eternity of the soul, with all its power to 
think, and feel, and resolve. 



The Scientists 71 

I dare say that these reasons will be furnished by 
many others, and that many other reasons will be 
given for faith in the future. I shall be glad to see 
a publication of all these, and suppose that you have 
such a work in contemplation. 

-DR. OCHOROWICZ t t t 

Latter-day science is slightly at fault for lack of 
imagination. She has become "routinized," has 
shut herself up in a bleak and arid region, has put- 
tered with petty details, petty measures, and petty 
formulas, all highly useful and necessary; but they 
never can constitute a science. A science is not 
complete without a general conception, that is, a 
philosophical conception. In the past the philo- 
sophical imagination was so misused, we think it 
our duty to do entirely without it. Men think that 
the scientific positivism that debars the study of 
"efficient" causes and "final" causes as in fact 
beyond our ken in our present stage of evolution, 
must debar such study forever, and not only that, 
but the study of every alleged phenomenon that 
seems visibly to lie beyond the boundary of our 
knowledge. 

Such prejudice is to be condemned. The old 
unscientific systems are dead, and that is well; but it 
is not well that no better system has come to take 
their place. We must advance with all caution, but 
we must advance, not only with regard to minor 
observations, but also with regard to a philosophic 



72 Proofs of Life After Death 

conception that shall steadily become broader, 
bolder and more profound. 

Now, we shall never attain a view of the sum of 
phenomena unless we free ourselves from the routine 
of the schools, and unless we attack manfully the 
problems of occultism and magic. 

For, take note, the sensist doctrine itself holds that 
man does not invent problems, but derives them 
from his experience. Magic is only an experimental 
science set on a wrong basis, distorted, incom- 
plete, degenerated — what you will: yet a science in 
its beginnings experimental. Let us take up anew 
these studies with the improved instrumentalities 
that we possess with the precise methods we are so 
proud of, and we shall see a progress we look not for 
take its start from this alliance between the past and 
the present — we shall see a new Renaissance. I am 
mistaken or it is already begun. 

DR. H. F. JAMES t t t 

In answer to your inquiry as briefly as possible: 
The work of Podmore, Gurney, and other pioneers 
in scientific psychical research has forced me to the 
conclusion that post-mortem persistence of con- 
sciousness is a fact in Nature. 

A very small percentage of spiritistic phenomena 
(so called) are undoubtedly genuine, and deserving 
of scientific investigation. While persistence of 
individual consciousness after death is almost scien- 
tifically demonstrated, nothing confirming the exist- 



The Scientists 73 

ence of a pantheon of deities, or bearing out the 
claims of any existing great religion, has been 
brought to the surface up to date. 

As to the fullness of consciousness, and the nature 
of the environment in which it operates, we are as 
yet without data. 

PROF. SIR WILLIAM CROOKES t t 

I consider it the duty of scientific men who have 
learned exact modes of working to examine phe- 
nomena which attract the attention of the public, in 
order to confirm their genuineness, or to explain, if 
possible, the delusions of the honest and to expose 
the tricks of the deceivers. 

That certain physical phenomena, such as the 
movement of material substances and the produc- 
tion of sounds resembling electric discharges, occur 
under circumstances in which they cannot be 
explained by any physical law at present known, is 
a fact of which I am as certain as I am of the most 
elementary fact in chemistry. My whole scientific 
education has been one long lesson in exactness of 
observation, and I wish to be distinctly understood 
that this firm conviction is the result of most care- 
ful investigation. 

In investigations which so completely baffle the 
ordinary observer, the thorough scientific man has a 
great advantage. He has followed science from the 
beginning through a long line of learning, and he 
knows, therefore, in what direction it is leading; he 



74 Proofs of Life After Death 

knows that there are dangers on one side, uncer- 
tainties on another, and almost absolute certainty 
on a third: he sees, to a certain extent, in advance. 
But, where every step is towards the marvelous and 
unexpected, precautions and tests should be multi- 
plied rather than diminished. Investigators must 
work, although their work may be very small in 
quantity, if only compensation be made by its intrin- 
sic excellence. But, even in this realm of marvels — 
this wonderland towards which scientific inquiry is 
sending out its pioneers — can anything be more 
astonishing than the delicacy of the instrumental 
aids which the workers bring with them to supple- 
ment the observations of their natural senses? * * * 

The persons in whose presence these phenomena 
take place are few in number, and opportunity for 
experimenting with previously arranged apparatus 
are rarer still. That the subject has to do with 
strange physiological conditions is clear, and these 
in a sense may be called "spiritual" when they pro- 
duce certain results in our minds. At present the 
phenomena I have observed baffle explanation; so 
do the phenomena of thought, which are also spir- 
itual, and which no philosopher has understood. No 
man, however, denies them. * ^k * 

In the presence of strange phenomena, as yet 
unexplored and unexplained, following each other 
in rapid succession, I confess it is difficult to avoid 
clothing their record in language of a sensational 



The Scientists 75 

character. But, to be successful, an inquiry must be 
undertaken by the philosopher without prejudice 
and without sentiment. Romantic and superstitious 
ideas should be entirely banished, and the steps of 
his investigation should be guided by intellect as 
cold and passionless as the instruments he uses. 
Having once satisfied himself that he is on the right 
track, the single object should animate him to pur- 
sue it, without regarding whether the facts which 
occur before his eyes are "naturally possible or im- 
possible." 

Like a traveler exploring some distant country, 
the wonders of which have hitherto been known 
only through reports and rumors of a vague or dis- . 
torted character, so for four years have I been occu- 
pied in pushing an inquiry into a territory of natural 
knowledge which offers almost virgin soil to a scien- 
tific man. (Investigations made by Professor 
Crookes in years 1870 to 1874, his attitude toward 
them to-day being the same as twenty-five years 
ago.) 

The phenomena, I am prepared to attest, are so 
extraordinary, and so directly oppose the most firm- 
ly rooted articles of scientific belief — amongst oth- 
ers, the ubiquity (general) and invariable action of 
the force of gravitation — that, even now, on recall- 
ing the details of what I witnessed, there is an an- 
tagonism in my mind between reason, which pro- 
nounces it to be scientifically impossible, and the 



y6 Proofs of Life After Death 

consciousness, both of sense and sight, — and these 
corroborated, as they were, by the senses of all who 
were present, — are not lying witnesses when they 
testify against my preconceptions. 

But the supposition that there is a sort of mania 
or delusion which suddenly attacks a whole roomful 
of intelligent persons who are quite sane elsewhere, 
and that they all concur to the minutest particulars 
in the details of the occurrences of which they sup- 
pose themselves to be the witnesses, seems to my 
mind more incredible than the facts they attest. 

Spiritualism amongst its more devout followers is 
a religion. The mediums, in many cases young 
members of the family, are guarded with a seclusion 
and jealousy which an outsider can penetrate with 
difiiculty. Being earnest and conscientious believ- 
ers in the truth of certain doctrines, which they hold 
to be substantiated by what appear to them to be 
miraculous occurrences, they seem to hold the pres- 
ence of scientific investigation a profanation of the 
shrine. As a personal favor I have more than once 
been allowed to be present at meetings that pre- 
sented more the form of a religious ceremony than a 
spiritualistic seance. * * * 

The many hundreds of facts of psychical phenom- 
ena, I am prepared to attest, — facts v/hich to imitate 
by known mechanical or physical means would baf- 
fle the skill of the greatest professional "conjurer" 
or "wizard" backed with all the resources of elabo- 



The Scientists yy 

rate machinery, and the practice of years, — have 
with few exceptions, all taken place in my own 
house, at times appointed by myself, and under cir- 
cumstances which absolutely precluded the employ- 
ment of the very simplest instrumental aids. The 
occurrences have taken place in the light, and with 
only private friends present besides the medium. 

In classifying some of the phenomena which have 
come under my notice, I proceed from the simple 
to the more complex, mentioning briefly the char- 
acter of the facts as I have investigated them: — The 
movement of heavy bodies without contact, but 
without mechanical exertion. * * The phenom- 
ena of percussive and other allied sounds. * * 
The alteration of weight of bodies. * * Move- 
ment of heavy substances when at a distance from 
the medium. * * The rising of tables and chairs 
off the ground, without contact with any person. 

* * The levitation of human bodies. * * Move- 
ment of various small articles without contact v/ith 
any person. * * Luminous appearances. * * 
The appearance of hands, either self-luminous or 
visible by ordinary light. * * Direct writing. 

* * Phantom forms and faces. * * 

The phenomena are governed by an intelligence. 
It becomes a question of importance as to the source 
of that intelligence. Is it the intelligence of the 
medium, of any of the other persons in the room, or 
is it an exterior intelligence? I have observed some 



78 Proofs of Life After Death 

circumstances which seem conclusively to point to 
the agency of an outside intelligence, not belong- 
ing to any human being in the room. 

(Prof. Crookes gives a large number of instances 
of occurrences under the various headings above 
enumerated, many of them seeming to prove beyond 
question the interference of intelligent human forces 
other than those of persons in the presence of the 
medium, or of the medium. It will be sufficient to 
produce here one of the most remarkable, if not the 
most remarkable, in the history of spiritualistic phe- 
nomena. It comes under the head of: Spirit Forms. 
Prof. Crookes had on many occasions taken to his 
house a medium by the name of Florence Cook. 
Miss Cook was an exceptional medium. Her 
"guide" went by the name of "Katie King," and 
while in trance the spirit form under this name was 
materialized. I give Prof. Crookes' own account of 
the last appearance of Katie King. — Editor): 

During the week before Katie King took her 
departure she gave seances at my house almost 
nightly, to enable me to photograph her by artificial 
light. Five complete sets of photographic apparatus 
were accordingly fitted up for the purpose, consist- 
ing of five cameras, one of the whole plate size, one 
quarter plate, and two binocular stereoscopic cam- 
eras, which were all brought to bear upon Katie at 
the same time on each occasion on which she stood 
for her portrait. Five sensitizing and fixing baths 
were used, and plenty of plates were cleaned ready 
for use in advance, so there might be no hitch or 
delay during the photographing operations, which 
were performed by myself, aided by two assistants. 



The Scientists 79 

My library was used as a dark cabinet. It has 
folding doors opening into the laboratory; one of 
these doors was taken off its hinges, and a curtain 
suspended in its place, to enable Katie to pass in 
and out easily. Those of our friends who were pres- 
ent were seated in the laboratory facing the curtain, 
and the cameras were placed a little behind them, 
ready to photograph Katie when she came outside, 
and to photograph anything also inside the cabinet, 
whenever the curtain was withdrav\^n for the pur- 
pose. Each evening there were three or four ex- 
posures of plates in the five cameras, giving at least 
fifteen separate pictures at each seance; some of 
these were spoilt in the developing, and som.e in 
regulating the amount of light. Altogether, I have 
forty-four negatives, some inferior, some indifferent, 
and some excellent. 

Katie instructed all the sitters but myself to keep 
their seats and to keep conditions, but for some time 
past she had given me permission to do what I 
liked — to touch her, and to enter and leave the cab- 
inet almost whenever I pleased. I have frequently 
followed her into the cabinet, and have sometimes 
seen her and her medium together, but most gener- 
ally I have found nobody but the entranced medium 
lying on the floor, Katie and her white robes having 
instantaneously disappeared. 

During the last six m.onths Miss Cook has been 
a frequent visitor at my house, remaining sometimes 



8o Proofs of Life After Death 

a week at a time. She brings nothing with her but 
a little hand-bag, not locked; during the day she is 
constantly in the presence of Mrs. Crookes, myself, 
or some other member of my family, and not sleep- 
ing by herself, there is absolutely no opportunity for 
any preparation even of a less elaborate character 
than would be required for enacting Katie King. I 
prepare and arrange my library myself as the dark 
cabinet and usually after Miss Cook has been dining 
and conversing with us, and scarcely out of our 
sight for a minute, she walks direct into the cabinet, 
and I, at her request, lock its second door and keep 
possession of the key all through the seance; the 
gas is then turned out, and Miss Cook is left in 
darkness. 

On entering the cabinet Miss Cook lies down 
upon the floor, with her head on a pillow, and is 
soon entranced. During the photographic seance, 
Katie muffled her medium's head up in a shawl to 
prevent the light falling upon her face. I frequently 
drew the curtain one side when Katie was standing 
near, and it was a common thing for seven or eight 
of us in the laboratory to see Miss Cook and Katie 
at the same time, under the full blaze of the electric 
light. We did not on these occasions actually see 
the face of the medium, because of the shawl, but we 
saw her hands and feet; we saw her move uneasily 
under the intense light, we heard her moan occa- 
sionally. I have one photograph of the two 



The Scientists 8i 

together, but Katie is seated in front of Miss Cook's 
head. 

During the time I have taken an active part in 
these seances Katie's confidence in me gradually 
grew until she refused to give a seance unless I took 
charge of the arrangements. She said she always 
wanted me to keep close to her, and near the cab- 
inet, and I found that after this confidence was estab- 
lished, and she was satisfied that I would not break 
any promise I m.ight make her, the phenomena 
increased greatly in power, and tests were freely 
given that would have been unobtainable had I 
approached the subject in another manner. She 
often consulted me about persons present at the 
seances, and where they should be placed, for of late 
she had become very nervous, in consequence of 
certain ill-advised suggestions that force should be 
employed as an adjunct to more scientific modes of 
research. 

One of the m^ost interesting of the pictures is one 
in which I am standing by the side of Katie ; she has 
her bare feet upon a particular part of the floor. 
Afterwards I dressed Miss Cook like Katie, placed 
her and myself in exactly the same position, and we 
were photographed by the same cameras, placed 
exactly as in the other experiment, and illuminated 
by the same light. When those two pictures are 
placed over each other, the two photographs of 
myself coincide exactly as regards stature, but Katie 



82 Proofs of Life After Death 

is half a head taller than Miss Cook, and looks a 
big woman in comparison with her. In the breadth 
of her face, in many of the pictures, she differs essen- 
tially in size from her medium, and the photographs 
show several other points of difference. But pho- 
tography is as inadequate to depict the perfect 
beauty of Katie's face, as words are powerless to 
describe her charms of manner. Photography may, 
indeed, give a map of her countenance; how can it 
produce the brilliant purity of her complexion, or 
the ever-varying expression of her most mobile fea- 
tures, now overshadowed with sadness when relat- 
ing some of the bitter experiences of her past life, 
now smiling with all the innocence of happy girl- 
hood when she had collected my children round her, 
and was amusing them by recounting anecdotes of 
her adventures in India? 

"Round her she made an atmosphere of life; 

The very air seemed lighter from her eyes, 
They were so soft and beautiful, and rife 

With all we can imagine of the skies; 
Her overpowering presence made you feel 

It would not be idolatry to kneel." 

Having seen so much of Katie lately, when she 
had been illuminated by the electric light, I am able 
to add to the points of difference between her and 
her medium, which I have mentioned formerly. I 
have the absolute certainty that Miss Cook and 
Katie are two separate individuals, so far as their 
bodies are concerned. Several little marks on Miss 



The Scientists 83 

Cook's face are absent on Katie's. Miss Cook's 
hair is so dark a brown as to almost appear black; 
a lock of Katie's which is now before me, and which 
she allowed me to cut from her luxuriant tresses, 
having first traced it to the scalp and satisfied myself 
that it actually grew there, is a rich golden auburn. 

One evening I timed Katie's pulse. It beat stead- 
ily at 75, whilst Miss Cook's pulse, a little time after, 
was going at its usual rate of 90. On applying my 
ear to Katie's chest I could hear a heart beating 
rhythmically inside, and pulsating even more stead- 
ily than did Miss Cook's heart when she allowed me 
to try a similar experiment after the seance. Tested 
in the same way, Katie's lungs were found to be 
sounder than her medium's, for at the time I tried 
my experiment Miss Cook was under medical treat- 
ment for a severe cough. 

When the time came for Katie to take her fare- 
well, I asked that she would let me see the last of 
her. Accordingly, when she had called each of the 
company up to her and spoken to them a few words 
in private, she gave some general directions for the 
future guidance and protection of Miss Cook. From 
these, which were taken down in shorthand, I quote 
the following: "Mr. Crookes has done very well 
throughout, and I leave Florrie with the greatest 
confidence in his hands, feeling perfectly sure he will 
not abuse the trust I place in him. He can act in 
any emergency better than I can myself, for he has 



84 Proofs of Life After Death 

more strength." Having concluded her directions, 
Katie invited me into the cabinet with her, and 
allowed me to remain there to the end. 

After closing the curtain she conversed with me 
for some time, and then walked across the room 
where Miss Cook was lying senseless on the floor. 
Stooping over her, Katie touched her, and said, 
"Wake up, Florrie, wake up! I must leave you 
now." Miss Cook then woke and tearfully entreated 
Katie to stay a little longer. "My dear, I can't; my 
work is done. God bless you," Katie replied, and 
then continued speaking to Miss Cook. For several 
minutes the two were conversing with each other, 
till at last Miss Cook's tears prevented her speaking. 
Following Katie's instructions I then came forward 
to support Miss Cook, who was falling on the floor 
sobbing hysterically. I looked round, but the white- 
robed Katie had gone. As soon as Miss Cook was 
sufficiently calmed, a light was procured and I led 
her out of the cabinet. 

Every test that I proposed to Miss Cook she at 
once agreed to submit to with the utmost willing- 
ness; she was open and straightforward, and I have 
never seen anything approaching the slightest symp- 
tom of a wish to deceive. Indeed, I do not believe 
she could carry on a deception if she were to try, 
and if she did she would certainly be found out very 
quickly, for such a line of action is altogether foreign 
to her nature. And to imagine that an innocent 



The Scientists 85 

school-girl of fifteen should be able to conceive and 
then successfully carry out for three years so gigan- 
tic an imposture as this, and in that time should 
submit to any test which might be imposed upon 
her, should bear the strictest scrutiny, should be 
willing to be searched at any time, either before or 
after a seance, and should meet with even better 
success in my own house than at that of her parents, 
knowing that she visited me with the express object 
of submitting to strict scientific tests, — to imagine, 
I say, the Katie King of the last three years to be 
the result of imposture does more violence to one's 
reason and common sense than to believe her to be 
what she herself affirms. 

(Professor Crookes, perhaps the greatest living 
chemist. Fellow of the Roj^al Society, is now promi- 
nently identified with the Society for Psychical 
Research. It is from his classification of the phe- 
nomena as "Psychic Force" that the name Psychical 
Research has arisen. — Editor.) 

DR. HERICOURT t ' t t 

Like everybody, and in particular like those who 
have lost dear ones, I would feel happy could I find 
arguments in favor of the survival of human person- 
ality. 

Alas! I have found none that are capable of over- 
coming scientific criticism. When the lamp goes 
out, where goes the flame? To all appearances this 
flame had a real existence, but was nothing but a 



86 Proofs of Life After Death 

series of vibrations constantly renewed and dissi- 
pated constantly. 

Thus it is with our soul and its personality; it is a 
flame of physiological conditions, resulting from 
vibrations no sooner produced than dissipated, and 
which has no more real existence than the flame of a 
lamp. 

What is immortal is the matter composing the 
lamp, the matter composing our body, for matter is 
part of the great whole which is indestructible. Mat- 
ter, however, does not interest us; what does, is 
light, our personality; and this very thing is noth- 
ing; for from each successive generation of souls 
nothing more remains than what is left of the lights 
of the last fete. 

A. VAN DER NAILLEN t t t 

I have had thousands of tests in psychic research 
satisfactory to myself, carrying with them absolute 
proof of the continuation of life; but you know, 
others who have never participated in such experi- 
ments, or who are not sufficiently developed to be 
gifted with the same illumination at least, cannot 
be convinced. I can only say that during forty 
years of investigation, always holding science in one 
hand as a counterweight, and running through all 
the phases of psychic science, and in Europe as well 
as America, interviewing and experimenting with 
the highest authorities everywhere, I am absolutely 
certain of the continuation of life after terrestrial 



The Scientists 87 

death. Immortality? As a believer, I would fain 
say: It is a fact; as a man of science, I must say: 
I do not know; for between continuation of life after 
death, and immortality, there is an immeasurable 
space. 

DR. A. EULENBERG t t t 

Desirous of responding to your wishes, at least as 
far as my limited intelligence and imperfect English 
will allow — especially to such an important question 
— I dare say that we cannot sharply enough distin- 
guish between the general results of scientific con- 
viction and our subjective ideas and sentiments, or 
what we may call our Credo. 

As for the first, I think we hitherto are not aware 
of a single fact or argument, objectively and scien- 
tifically proving or even favoring individual immor- 
tality; whilst, on the contrary, there exists no fact 
or argument absolutely refuting and excluding that 
hypothesis. "Ignoramus" and (as we may say with 
Du Bois-Reymond) "ignoratimus". 

Of course there remains free space enough for all 
kinds of feeling, for fears and hopes; and all people 
for which the thought of personality appeals as a 
relief and an indispensable con olation in the bitter- 
ness of life's struggles, are fully justified in retaining 
and maintaining against whatever assaults that sat- 
isfying belief. I cannot agree with Haeckel when 
he suggests that a definite resignation of that belief 
would not signify a painful loss, but on the contrary 



38 Proofs of Life After Death 

would be an invaluable gain for mankind. I wish 
to oppose to his thought a word of Goethe, that, 
as I suppose, better defines the subjective side of 
the question: "I would not be deprived of the hap- 
piness of believing in a future existence; I even dare 
say that all those are dead for this life who by no 
means hope in another life." 

PROF. D. I. MENDELIEFF t t 

The question as to the continuance of the exist- 
ence of the soul or personal identity after death, 
mentioned in your letter of August, 1901, I, as a 
natural philosopher, consider to be an hypothesis 
which cannot be proved by evidence of real facts. 
But as a man educated in a religious sense, I prefer 
to remain in the behef of the immortality of the soul. 
It is my opinion that the philosophical side of the 
question consists in the relation between the soul, 
the natural forces, and matter; and if it were possible 
to clear up to some extent this feature of the prob- 
lem — the relation between force and matter — then 
also the relation between the soul and natural forces 
would be forwarded to a great extent. 

The unquestionable existence of reason, will and 
consciousness compels us to acknowledge the exist- 
ence of a special world of relations of this kind, and 
any rational conclusion in relation to this special 
world cannot be accepted as proved quite in the 
same manner. Knowledge of physics and mechan- 



The Scientists 89 

ks does not give anything in relation to chemistry or 
in relation to the existence of celestial bodies. 

We must simply confess that it is impossible to 
comprehend this question in a general way, but it 
would also be sheer nonsense to ignore the physical 
world; and as matter and natural forces must be 
acknowledged as eternal, it is also probable that the 
soul is eternal. 
PROF. TH. FLOURNOY t t t 

One may almost say that if telepathy did not exist 
one would have to invent it. I mean by this that a 
■direct action between living beings, independent of 
the organs of the senses, is a matter of such con- 
formity to all that we know of nature that it would 
be hard not to suppose a priori, even if we had no 
perceptible indication of it. How is it possible to 
"believe that the foci of chemical phenomena, as com- 
plex as the nervous centres, can be in activity with- 
out giving forth diverse undulations, x, y, or z rays, 
traversing the cranium as the sun traverses a pane 
of glass, and acting at a distance on their homo- 
logues in other craniums? It is a simple matter of 
intensity. 

The gallop of a horse or the leap of a flea in Aus- 
tralia causes the terrestrial globe to rebound on its 
opposite side to an extent proportional to the weight 
of these animals compared to that of our planet. 
This is little, even without taking into account the 
fact that this infinitesimal displacement runs the risk 



go Proofs of Life After Death 

at every moment of being neutralized by the leaps of 
horses and fleas on the other hemisphere, so that^ 
on the whole, the shocks to our terrestrial globe 
resulting from all the moves on its surface are too 
feeble to prevent our sleeping. Perhaps it is the 
same with the innumerable waves which coming 
from all other living beings, shock at every moment 
a given brain: their efforts are counterbalanced, or 
their resultant too slight to be perceived. But they 
exist none the less in reality, and I confess I do not 
understand those who reproach telepathy with be- 
ing strange, mystical, occult, supernormal, etc. 

(Professor Flournoy in his recent book — From 
India to the Planet Mars — gives a remarkable his- 
tory of his experiments with a young lady medium 
of his acquaintance in Geneva, Mdlle. Smith. His 
conclusions are not favorable to spirit communica- 
tions. He advances the foregoing ideas respecting 
telepathy. — Editor.) 

PROF. A. FOUILLEE t t t 

Sir: — Time fails me to answer the serious ques- 
tion you put to me, but which however I intend to 
investigate some day for my own satisfaction. Mean- 
while I refer you to the masterpiece of Guyau, on 
the Irreligion de I'Avenir, translated into English 
under the title of "The Non-Religion of the 
Future."^ It is in this book, in my opinion, that 
you will find the most complete and eloquent dem- 



1 Brentano's, Paris. 



The Scientists 91 

onstration of scientific and philosophical facts rel- 
ative to the problem of the immortality of the soul, 
and which would suppose the perfect knowledge 

First, Of what is the being. 

Second, Of what is thought. 

Third, Relation of the being to thought and con- 
sciousness. 

PROF. WILLIAM JAMES t t t 

When the physiologist who thinks that his science 
cuts off all hopes of immortality pronounces the 
phrase "Thought is a function of the brain," he 
thinks of the matter just as he thinks when he says, 
"Steam is a function of the tea-kettle." "Light is a 
function of the electric circuit." "Power is the func- 
tion of the moving waterfall." In these latter cases 
the several material objects have the function of 
inwardly creating or engendering their effects, and 
their function must be called productive function. 
Just so, he thinks, it must be with the brain. 

But in the world of physical nature productive 
function of this sort is not the only kind of function 
with which we are familiar. We have also permis- 
sive or releasing function; and we have transmissive 
function. * * * fi^^ j^^yg Qf ^^ organ have only 
a transmissive function. They open successively the 
various pipes and let the wind in the air-chest escape 
in various ways. The voices of the various pipes 
are constituted by the columns trembling as they 
emerge. But the air is not engendered in the organ. 



92 Proofs of Life After Death 

My thesis now is this : That when we think of the 
law that thought is a function of the brain, we are 
not required to think of productive function only; 
we are entitled also to consider permissive or trans- 
missive function. And, the ordinary psycho-physi- 
ologist leaves this out of his account. 

(The "permissive or releasing function" and the 
^'transmissive function" referred to by Professor 
James, whom we may state here is recognized as one 
of the greatest living psychologists, means the 
power to choose, the power to act, the fact of intel- 
lectual freedom; in other words the human will. The 
greatest brain activity is obtained by the use of stim- 
ulants, such as alcohol, opium, and so forth. They 
exalt the automatic activity of the mind, as is said 
by one of our great scientists, but simultaneously 
with this exaltation of the mind there is a corre- 
sponding decrease in the power of the will, until 
finally there is a complete suspension of its control. 
—Editor.) 

CAMILLE FLAMMARION t t t 

The universal and constant aspirations of all think- 
ing human beings, the reverence and affectionate 
remembrance in which we hold the memory of our 
dead, the innate idea of a day of Judgment, the feel- 
ings inherent in our consciousness and in our intel- 
lect, the miserable incoherence between the des- 
tinies of men on earth compared with the mathe- 
matical order which regulates the universe, the 
bewildering impression we receive of the infinite and 
the eternal as we gaze into the starry heavens, and 



1 



The Scientists 93 

beneath all this our certainty of the permanent iden- 
tity of our I (our individual existence) notwithstand- 
ing perpetual changes in our bodies and our brains — 
all conspire to create in us a conviction of the exist- 
ence of the soul as an individual entity, which will 
survive the destruction of our corporeal organism, 
and which must be immortal. 

However this may be, scientific demonstration of 
all this has not as yet been made, and physiologists 
teach us, on the contrary, that thought is a function 
of the brain, that without brain there is no thought, 
and that all dies when we die. In this there is dis- 
agreement between the ideal aspirations of human 
nature and what we call positive science. 

On the other side we do not know, we cannot 
affirm anything but what we have learned, and we 
cannot know anything until we have learned it. 
Science alone makes steady progress in the history 
of mankind. It is science which has transformed the 
world, though we rarely render her the justice and 
gratitude that are her due. It is through her that 
we live intellectually, and even materially, at the 
present day. She alone can guide us and enlighten 
us. 

Perhaps the most singular thing of all is that a 
free inquiry into truth seems disagreeable to every- 
one; for each brain has its little secrets, which it 
does not wish to have disturbed. If, for example, I 
say that the immortality of the soul, already demon- 



94 Proofs of Life After Death 

strated by philosophy, will be speedily proved by 
psychic sciences, more than one skeptic will smile at 
my assertion. New facts or new ideas bewilder 
and horrify them. They wish to see no changes in 
the steady march of events to which they are accus- 
tomed. The history of the progress of human 
knowledge is a dead-letter to them. The boldness 
of investigators, of inventors, of all who try to effect 
any kind of revolution, seems criminal to them. In 
their eyes the human race has always been what it 
is at the present moment. They overlook the 
stone age, the discovery cf fire, the first construc- 
tion of houses, the building of carts, carriages, and 
railroads — in short, all the difficulties that the intel- 
ligence of man has overcome, and all the discoveries 
of science. 

Great men have apparently striven to trace out for 
science its "positive" way. They tell us we are only 
to admit what we can see, or touch, or what we have 
heard; we are to receive nothing except on the clear 
evidence of our own senses, and not to endeavor to 
know what is unknowable. For half a century these 
have' been the rules which have regulated science in 
the world. 

But see now. In analyzing the testimony of our 
senses we find that they can deceive us absolutely. 
We see the sun, the moon, the stars revolving, as 
it seems to us, round us. That is false. We feel 
that the earth is motionless. That is false, too. We 



The Scientists 95 

see the sun rise above the horizon. It is beneath us. 
We touch what we think is a solid body. There is 
no such thing. We hear harmonious sounds; but 
the air has only brought us silently undulations that 
are silent themselves. We admire the effects of 
light, and the colors that bring vividly before our 
eyes the splendid scenes of nature; but in fact there 
is no light, there are no colors. It is the movement 
of colorless ether striking on our optic nerve which 
gives us the impression of light and color. We 
burn our foot in the fire; it is not the foot that pains 
us; it is in our brain only that the feeling of being 
burned resides. We speak of heat and cold; there 
is neither heat nor cold in the universe, only motion. 
Thus our senses mislead us as to the reality of ob- 
jects around us. Sensation and reality are two dif- 
ferent things. 

We are told of five doors to human knowledge, 
sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. These five 
doors open for us but a little way to any knowledge 
of the world around us, especially the last three, 
smell, taste, and touch. The eye and ear can do a 
good deal, but it is light alone that really puts us in 
communication with the universe; and light is a sen- 
sation caused by a kind of excessively rapid vibration 
of the air. 

All our human knowledge might be symbolically 
represented by a tiny island surrounded by a limit- 
less ocean. There are still a vast number of things 



q6 Proofs of Life After Death 

not yet explained, which belong to the domain of 
the unknown/ 

Positive observation proves the existence of a 
psychic world, as real as the world known to our 
physical senses. And now, because the soul acts at 
a distance by some pov/er that belongs to it, are we 
authorized to conclude that it exists as something 
real, and that it is not the result of functions of that 
part of the body called the brain. 

Of what is the human body composed? An aver- 
age adult man VN^eighs 140 lbs. Of this amount 
there are nearly 104 lbs. of water in the blood and 
flesh. Analyze the substance of our body, you find 
albumen, fibrine, caseine, and gelatine; that is, 
organic substances composed originally of the four 
essential gases, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and 
carbonic acid. You will also find gum, sugar, 
starch, etc., substances which are exhaled during 
respiration under the form of carbonic acid and 
water. 

Water is a combination of two gases, oxygen and 
hydrogen; the air is a mixture of two gases, oxygen 
and nitrogen, to which is added, in lesser propor- 
tions, water in the form of vapor, which, however, is 
but condensed oxygen. 

Thus our body is composed only of transformed 
gases. 

In a few months (not in seven years, as was for- 

1 See Flammarion's book, The Unknown, Harper Bros. 



The Scientists 97 

merly thought) our body is entirely renewed. None 
of the flesh of our body existed three months ago; 
the shoulders, face, eyes, mouth, the arms, the hair 
— all of our organism is but a current of molecules, 
a ceaselessly renewed flame, a river which we may 
look upon all of our lives but never see the same 
water again. It is all nothing but assimilated gas, 
condensed and modified, and more than anything 
else, it is air. Our M^hole body is composed of invis- 
ible molecules which (when taken separately) do not 
touch each other, and which are continually 
renewed. 

Finally, our table is spread; if we are vegetarians 
we absorb substances almost entirely drawn from 
the air. This peach is air and water; this pear, this 
grape, this nut are also made of air and water, a few 
gaseous elements drawn to them by the sap, by solar 
heat, by rain. Asparagus or salad, peas, beans or 
lettuce, all these live in the air and on the air — the 
very same gases, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, car- 
bon, etc. 

If it is a question of meat, the difference is not 
great. This substance, apparently so different, is 
only transformed vegetable matter, which Itself is 
but a grouping of molecules taken from the gases. 

Thus, whatever may be our kind of nourishment, 
our body, kept repaired, developed by the absorp- 
tion of molecules acquired by respiration and alimen- 
tation, is really but a current incessantly renewed 



98 Proofs of Life After Death 

by means of this assimilation, — directed, governed, 
and organized by the immaterial force which ani- 
mates us. To this force we may assuredly give the 
name of soul. It groups the atoms which suit it, 
eliminates those which are useless to it, and, starting 
with an imperceptible speck, an indiscernible germ, 
ends by building up a perfect human body. 

But this force is immaterial, invisible, intangible, 
imponderable, like the attraction which lulls the 
worlds in the universal melody; and the body, how- 
ever material it may seem to us, is in itself only a 
harmonious grouping, formed by the attraction of 
this interior force. 

F'rom the origin of humanity down to within a 
century or two it has been believed that sensation 
was perceived at the very point where it was felt. A 
pain in the finger was considered as having its seat 
in the finger itself. Children and many people 
believe so still. Physiology has demonstrated that 
the impression is transmitted from the finger-tip to 
the brain by means of the nervous system. If the 
nerve is cut, the finger may be burned with impu- 
nity; the paralysis is complete. We have been able 
to determine the time taken by the impression in 
transmitting itself from any part of the body to the 
brain, and it is known that the rapidity of this trans- 
mission is about twenty-eight metres per second. 
Since then we have referred sensation to the brain. 
But we have stopped half way. 



The Scientists 99 

The brain is matter, like the finger, and by no 
means fixed and stable matter. It is essentially 
changing matter, rapidly variable, and forming no 
identity. A single lobe, a single cell, a single mole- 
cule which does not change, does not and could not 
exist in the whole mass of brain matter. A stop- 
page of motion, of circulation, or of transformation 
would be a death warrant. The brain subsists and 
feels only on condition of submitting, like all the 
rest of the body, to the incessant transformation of 
organic matter which constitutes the vital circuit. 

So it cannot be that our personality, our identity, 
lies in a certain grouping of brain matter, — our mdi- 
vidual me, our ego which acquires and preserves a 
personal scientific moral value, increasing with 
study; our ego which feels itself responsible for its 
acts performed a month, a year, ten, twenty, fifty 
years ago, during which the composition of the 
body, the molecular grouping, has been changed fre- 
quently. 

Physiologists who affirm that the soul does not 
exist, are like their ancestors who affirmed that they 
felt pain in their finger or their foot. They are little 
less far from the truth, but they stop on the way 
when they stop at the brain, and make the human 
being consist only of brain impressions. This theory 
is all the less excusable because these same physiolo- 
gists know perfectly well that personal sensation is 
always accompanied by a modification of substance. 

L.ofO. 



100 Proofs of Life After Death 

In other words, the ego of the individual only con- 
tinues when the identity of its matter ceases to con- 
tinue. * * * 

Here are the inductions which appear to me to be 
founded on the study of Nature, that is to say, by 
science: 

The visible, tangible, ponderable, and constantly 
moving universe is composed of invisible, intangible, 
imponderable, and inert atoms. 

These atoms are governed by force, to constitute 
bodies and to organize beings. 

Force is essential entity (being). 

Visibility, tangibility, solidity, and weight are rela- 
tive properties, and not absolute realities. 

The intangible, invisible atom, scarcely conceiv- 
able to our mind accustomed to^ superficial judg- 
ments, constitutes the only true matter; and what 
we call matter is but an effect produced on our 
senses by the motion of atoms, — that is to say, an 
incessant possibility of sensations. 

The visible universe is composed of invisible bod- 
ies. What we see is made up of things which are not 
seen. Different bodies, iron, gold, oxygen, hydro- 
gen, etc., are composed of the same primal atoms; 
their difference lies only in the number, grouping 
and motion of the atoms. 

What we call "matter," vanishes when scientific 
analysis thinks to grasp it. But we find as the sup- 
port of the universe and the origin of all form, 
Force, — the dynamic element. 



The Scientists loi 

The human being has for essential principle the 
soul. The body is visible and transitory. 

Atoms are indestructible. The energy which 
moves atoms and governs the universe is indestruct- 
ible. The human soul is indestructible. 

The individuality of the soul is recent in the 
world's history. Our planet was nebula, then sun, 
after that chaos. No terrestrial human being was 
then in existence. Life began with the most rudi- 
mentary organism; it has progressed century by 
century to attain its present state, which is not the 
last. What we call the faculties of the soul, — intelli- 
gence, reason, conscience, — are modern. The mind 
has gradually freed itself from matter; as — if the 
comparison were not awkward — gas frees itself from 
coal, perfume from the flower, flame from flre.^ 

Psychic force has been beginning to exert itself 
in the higher spheres of terrestrial humanity for the 
past thirty or forty centuries; its action is but in its 
dawn. Souls conscious of their individuality, or still 
unconscious of it, are by their very nature beyond 
the conditions of time and space. After the death 
of the body, as during life, they occupy no place; 
perhaps some of them go to dwell in other worlds. 
Those only who are freed from material bonds can 
be conscious of their extra-corporeal existence and 
immortality. 



1 See Expressions, by Minot J. Savage. 



102 Proofs of Life After Death 

The earth is but a province of the eternal father- 
land; it forms a part of heaven. Heaven is infinite; 
all worlds are a part of heaven. 

The planetary arKi sidereal S3^stems which consti- 
tute the universe are at different degrees of organi- 
zation and advancement. The extent of their diver- 
sity is infinite; there are beings everywhere appro- 
priate to their worlds. 

All worlds are not lived upon. The present era is 
of no more importance than those which preceded 
or those which will follow it. Some worlds have 
been inhabited in the past, others will be in the 
future. Some day nothing will remain of the earth; 
even its ruins will have perished. 

Terrestrial life is not the type of other lives. An 
unlimited diversity reigns in the universe. There 
are dwelling-places where the weight is intense, 
where light is unknown, where touch, smell, and 
hearing are the only senses, where, the optic nerve 
not being formed, all beings are blind. There are 
other dwelling-places where the beings are so light 
and SO' slight that they would be invisible to earthly 
eyes, where senses of exquisite delicacy reveal to 
privileged beings sensations forbidden to terrestrial 
humanity. 

The space existing between the worlds distrib- 
uted over the immense universe does not separate 
them from each other. They are all in perpetual 
communication, from the attraction which makes it- 



The Scientists 103 

self felt through all distance, and establishes an indis- 
soluble link between worlds. 

The universe forms a single unity. 

The system of the physical world is the material 
basis, the habitat of the moral or spiritual world. 
Every thinking being bears within himself the con- 
sciousness, but uncertainty , of immortality. This 
is because we are the microscopic wheels of an 
unknown mechanism. 

Man makes his own destiny. He rises or falls in 
accordance with his own works. But a primordial 
and absolute law governs creation, — the law of 
progress. Everything rises in the infinite. 

In the ascension of souls, the moral qualities have 
no less value than the intellectual quahties. 

Universal creation is an immense harmony, of 
which the earth is but an insignificant, rather unin- 
teresting, and unfinished fragment. 

The eternity of the soul would not be long enough 
to visit the infinite and learn all there is to know. 

The soul's destiny is to free itself more and more 
from the material world, and to belong to the lofty 
Uranian life, whence it can look down upon matter 
and suffer no more. It then enters upon the spir- 
itual life, eternally pure. The supreme aim of all 
beings is the perpetual approach to absolute perfec- 
tion and divine happiness. 



104 Proofs of Life After Death 

DR. IRA VAN GIESEN t t t 

Please let me congratulate you on the importance 
of your endeavor, and express the hope that the lit- 
erature you father will continually grow and stimu- 
late continual inquiry in this field. * * * 

Clifford, it seems to me, has written one of the 
greatest essays on this question, and I feel that his 
view is logical and acceptable. * * * 



i 



Tart IT 



Tlie Psychical ^esearcl^ers 



(105) 



"Psychical Research is the most important work 
which is being done in the zuorld — by far the most 
important." 

— Wm. E. Gladstone. 



(106) 



"// anyone cares to hear what sort of conviction has 
been horn in upon my own mind, as a scientific man, 
by twenty years familiarity with these questions which 
concern us {Psychical Research), I am very willing 
to reply as frankly as I can. I am, for all personal 
purposes, convinced of the persistence of human exist- 
ence beyond bodily death; and though I am unable to 
justify that belief in a full and complete manner, yet it 
is a belief which has been produced by scientific evi- 
dence that is based upon facts and experience." 

Dr. Sir Oliver Lodge, F. R. S. 
Mathematician, President of 
the Society for Psychical 
Research. 



"When I look over the whole field of the phenomena, 

and consider the suppositions that must be made to 

escape spiritism, which not only one aspect of the case, 

but every incidental feature of it strengthens, * * 

/ see no reason except the suspicions of my neighbors 

for withholding assent." 

J. H. Hyslop, Professor of 
Logic and Ethics, Columbia 

University. 



(107) 



From Intimations of Immortalit'y. 

Wotdsvoortli. 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar; 

Not in entire forgetfulness. 

And not in utter nakedness, 

Bui trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, who is our home. 



(108) 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. 

The idea expressed in the axiom: "A rose by 
any other name would smell as sweet," strangely 
enough does not apply in science. Magic, mesmer- 
ism, physical magnetism and supernaturalism, are 
terms that frighten the careful investigator, the 
orthodox scientist; so also, the word spiritualism. 

"It is obvious," says Professor Crookes, "that 
under certain circumstances, phenomena, inexplic- 
able by any known natural laws do occur; and these 
phenomena appear conclusively to establish the 
existence of a new force, in some unknown manner 
connected with the human organism, and which for 
convenience may be called Psychic Force." 

Thus we take the Pillar of Hercules and give it 
the name of Gibraltar. And the simile is good; for 
Gibraltar was once called by our fathers the Pillar 
of Hercules, the end of the world, beyond which no 
man could pass and live. As Gibraltar it has become 
a famous place, walled and mined and fortified; and 
instead of having been the end of the world, it 
became, in a sense, the beginning. Through its 
dark straits came Columbus and sailed to a new 
world; came also Amerigo Vespucci and made a 
map of that world. 

(109) 



no Proofs of Life After Death 

From the Pillar of Hercules to Gibraltar, from 
mesmerism to hypnotism, from spiritualism to 
"Psychic Force." Yet psychic force must, like Gib- 
raltar, be analyzed, mined, walled, and if like all true 
knowledge it is found available for the protection of 
mankind, be fortified and made invulnerable; be 
made a starting point from which the horizon of 
knowledge may be extended, new worlds discovered 
and, as by Columbus and his innumerable followers 
during the past four hundred years, from this door- 
way the dark and unknown sea of psychic phenom- 
ena must be navigated, and perchance the still 
greater freedom of man effected. 

The Society for Psychical Research was founded 
twenty years ago — in 1882. It is a scientific body 
organized on a broad basis. We could fill a dozen 
pages of this book with the names of members of 
this society, some of them the best known and dis- 
tinguished for accomplishment in the world. But 
in the words of the late F. W. H. Myers, "Psychical 
Research is no longer felt to need the recommenda- 
tion of names independently eminent in other 
branches of study." The undertaking of the society 
may best be summarized by the following, taken 
from the ofBcially announced objects of the society: 

An examination of the nature and extent of any 
influence which may be exerted by one mind upon 
another, otherwise than through the recognized sen- 
sory channels. 



Psychical Research iii 

The study of hypnotism and mesmerism; and an 
inquiry into the alleged phenomena of clairvoyance. 

A careful investigation of any reports, resting on 
testimony sufficiently strong and not too remote, of 
apparitions coinciding with some external event (as 
for instance a death), or giving information previ- 
ously unknown to the percipient (the one perceiv- 
ing), or being seen by two or more persons 
independently of each other. 

An inquiry into various alleged phenomena appar- 
ently inexplicable by known laws of nature, and 
commonly referred by Spiritualists to the agency of 
extra-human intelligences. 

The collection and collation of existing materials 
bearing on the history of these subjects. 

The aim of the society is to approach these vari- 
ous problems without prejudice or prepossession of 
any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unim- 
passioned inquiry which has enabled science to solve 
so many problems, once not less obscure nor less 
hotly debated. The founders of the society have 
always fully recognized the exceptional difficulties 
which surround this branch of research; but they 
nevertheless believe that by patient and systematic 
effort some results of permanent value may be 
attained. 

No man can be a truly scientific student unless he 
considers truth of priceless importance, and is pre- 
pared to sacrifice all preconceived notions and care- 



112 Proofs of Life After Death 

fully elaborated opinions whenever he discovers 
them to be erroneous. Life itself is considered well 
spent if it contribute, in a scientific way, to the dis- 
covery of fresh truth. Therefore, truly scientific 
men, while ready and anxious to make any sacrifice 
in the cause of their pursuits, are equally and prop- 
erly stubborn and cautious against making false 
steps or unjustifiable conclusions. When they 
announce here, as they do, that they are convinced 
by evidence obtained by Psychical Research that 
the soul of man lives after death, and that this prop- 
osition is proven by the fact that under certain cir- 
cumstances undeniable evidence of its truth has 
come under their observation — observation cold 
and dispassionate, if not disinterested — we are 
bound to accept their statements and say: God- 
speed to their mining and tunneling and fortification 
of "Gibraltar." 

(For men or women of wealth to endow the Soci- 
ety for Psychical Research would seem to me to be a 
high privilege and one unique and exceptional in the 
history of education or the advancement of the sci- 
ences. — Editor.) 



The Psychical Researchers. 

FREDERIC W. H. MYERS t t t 

"Seeker after truth and helper of his comrades." 
The death of Frederic W. H. Myers, one of the 
most eminent and serious students of the present 
time, a monumental figure and pioneer in "the most 
important work of the world" — that of Psychical 
Research — is described by the eminent Italian physi- 
cian who attended him at the time as "a spectacle 
for the gods ; it was most edifying to see how a gen- 
uine conviction of immortality can make a man 
indifferent to what to ordinary people is so hor- 
rible." 

In his last hours, in the intervals of painfully dif- 
ficult breathing, he quoted from one of his own 
poems : — 

Ah, welcome then that hour which bids thee lie 
In anguish of thy last infirmity! 
Welcome the toss for ease, the gasp for air, 
The visage draivn, the hippocratic stare; 
Welcome the darkening dream, the lost control, 
The sleep, the swoon, the arousal of the soul. 

"Frederic Myers' faith was the outcome entirely 
of his scientific researches. The years of struggle 

and effort and systematic thought had begotten in 

ai3) 



114 Proofs of Life After Death 

him a confidence, absolute and supreme," writes 
Dr. Oliver Lodge, the President of the society to 
which Frederic Myers so faithfully devoted his 
splendid abilities. "To Myers this faith did not come 
by religion. He would have described himself as 
one who walked by sight and knowledge rather than 
by faith, and his eager, life-long struggle for knowl- 
edge was in order that he might by no chance be 
mistaken. I never knew a man so hopeful concern- 
ing his ultimate destiny. He once asked me 
whether I would barter, if it were possible, my 
unknown destiny, whatever it might be, for as many 
aeons of unmitigated and wise terrestrial happiness 
as might last till the fading of the sun, and then 
an end. 

"He would not! For to him not the whole of 
each personality is incarnate in this mortal fiesh; the 
subliminal self still keeps watch and ward beyond 
the threshold, and is in touch always with another 
life." 

In one of his last public utterances. Frederic 
Myers expressed himself as follows, respecting the 
work of the Society for Psychical Research: 

Starting from various standpoints, we endeavor to 
carry the newer, the intellectual virtues into regions 
where dispassionate tranquillity has seldom yet been 
known. * * * First, we adopt the ancient 
belief — implied in all monotheistic (one God) relig- 
ion, and conspicuously confirmed by the progress of 



The Psychical Researchers 115 

modern science — that the world as a whole, spiritual 
and material together, has in some way a systematic 
unity: and on this we base the novel presumption 
that there should be a unity of method in the inves- 
tigation of all fact. We hold, therefore, that the atti- 
tude, the habits of mind, the methods by which 
physical science has grown deep and wide, should be 
applied also to the spiritual world. We endeavor to 
approach the problems of that world by careful col- 
lection, scrutiny, testing of particular facts; and we 
account no unexplained fact too trivial for our atten- 
tion. 

The faith to which science is sworn, is a faith in 
the uniformity, the coherence, the intelligibility of, 
at any rate, the material universe. Science herself is 
but the practical development of this mighty pos- 
tulate (proposition). And if any phenomena on 
which she chances on her onward way seem arbi- 
trary, or incoherent, or unintelligible, she does not 
therefore suppose that she has come upon an unrav- 
eled end in the texture of things ; but rather takes for 
granted that a rational answer to the new problem 
must somewhere exist — an answer which will be all 
the more instructive because it will involve facts of 
which that first question must have failed to take 
due account. 

This faith in the uniformity of material Nature 
formulates itself in two great dogmas — for such they 
are; — the dogma of the conservation of matter and 



ii6 Proofs of Life After Death 

the dogma of the conservation of energy. Of the 
conservation of matter, within earthly limits, we are 
fairly well assured ; but of the conservation of energy 
the proof is far less complete, simply because energy 
is a conception which does not belong to the mate- 
rial world alone. Life is to us the most important of 
all forms of activity — of energy, I would say — 
except that we cannot transform other energies into 
life, nor measure in foot-pounds that directive force 
which has changed the face of the world. Life 
comes, we know not whence; it vanishes, we know 
not whither; it is interlocked with a moving system 
vaster than that we know. To grasp the whole of its 
manifestations, we should have to follow it into an 
unseen world. Yet scientific faith bids us believe 
that there, too, there is continuity; and that the past 
and the future of that force which we discern for a 
moment are still subject to universal law. 

Out of the long Stone Age our race is awakening 
into consciousness of itself. We stand in the dawn 
of history. Behind us lies a vast and unrecorded 
waste — the mighty struggle humanam condere gcn- 
tem. Since the times of that ignorance we have not 
yet gone far; a few thousand years, a few hundred 
thinkers, have barely started the human mind upon 
the great aeons of its onward way. It is not yet the 
hour to sit down in our studies and try to eke out 
tradition with intuition — as one might be forced to 
do in a planet's senility, by the glimmer of a fading 
sun. 



The Psychical Researchers ny 

The traditions, the intuitions of our race are them- 
selves in their infancy; and before we abandon our- 
selves to brooding over them let us at least first 
try the upshot of a systematic search for actual facts. 
For what should hinder? If our inquiry first lead us 
through a jungle of fraud and folly, need that alarm 
us? As well might Columbus have yielded to the 
sailors' panic when he was entangled in the Sara- 
gossa Sea. If our first clear facts about the unseen 
world seem small and trivial, should that deter us 
from the quest? As well might Columbus have 
sailed home again, with America in the offing, on 
the ground that it was not worth while to discover 
a continent which manifested itself only by dead 

logs. 5ic :»s * 

Unless some insight is gained into the psychical 
side of things, some communications realized with 
intelligences outside our own, some light thrown 
upon a more than corporeal descent and destiny of 
man, it would seem that the shells to be picked up 
on the shore of the ocean of truth will ever become 
scantier, and the agnostics of the future will gaze 
forth ever more hopelessly on that gloomy and 
unvoyageable sea. For vast as is the visible uni- 
verse, infinite as may have been the intelligence that 
went to its evolution, yet while viewed in the exter- 
nal way in which we alone can view it — while seen 
as a product and not as a plan — it cannot possibly 
suggest to us an indefinite number of universal laws. 



ii8 Proofs of Life After Death 

Such cosmic generalizations as gravitation, evolu- 
tion, correlation of forces, conservation of energy, 
though assuredly as yet unexhausted, cannot, in the 
nature of things, be even approximately inexhaust- 
ible. 

(In regard to the chief mental phenomena — that 
of trance mediumship — now under investigation by 
the Society for Psychical Research, Mr. Myers 
expressed the following convictions, the result of 
great experimentation and close observation. — 
Editor): 

Trance is a name applied to a form of automa- 
tism, whether healthy or morbid, in which the 
automatist appears to be in some way altered, or 
even asleep, but in which he may speak or write 
certain matter of which his normal personality is 
ignorant at the time, and which it rarely remembers 
on his return to waking life. If there appears to be 
not merely a modification but a substitution of per- 
sonality in the trance, it is called possession. Trance 
occurs spontaneously in so-called somnambulism, as 
a result of disease in hysteria, and as a result of sug- 
gestion, etc., in hypnotic states. A fuller analysis 
shows classes which slide into each other in various 
ways. 

The trance may be simulated and the utterances 
fraudulent; the facts which they contain having 
been previously learnt, or being acquired at the time 
by a "fishing" process. This is usually the case with 
professional clairvoyants. 



The Psychical Researchers ng 

The trance may be genuine, but morbid; and the 
utterances incoherent or in other ways degenera- 
tive, even v^^hen showing memory or accuracy 
greater than normal. This is the case in hysteria, 
so-called demoniacal possession, etc. 

The trance may be genuine and healthy, and the 
utterances coherent, but containing no actual fact 
unknown to the automatist. This is sometimes the 
case in hypnotic trance; and the "inspirations of 
genius" may approach this type. 

The trance may be genuine and healthy, and the 
utterances may contain facts not known to the 
automatist, but known to other persons present, and 
thus possibly reached by telepathy; or existent else- 
where, and thus possibly reached by telsesthesia. 

The trance may be genuine and healthy, and the 
utterances may contain facts not previously known 
to the subject nor always known to the observers, 
but verifiable, and such as might probably be 
included in the memory of certain definite deceased 
persons, from whom they profess to come. This 
form of trance may suggest a temporary substitution 
of personality. 

During the past twenty-five years I have seen 
many specimens of the three former of these classes, 
and a few of the two latter and more interesting 
types. I claim that this substitution of personality, 
or spirit-control, or possession, or pneumaturgy, is a 
normal forward step in the evolution of our race. I 



120 Proofs of Life After Death 

claim that a spirit exists in man, and that it is healthy 
and desirable that this spirit should be thus capable 
of partial and temporary dissociation from the organ- 
ism; — itself then enjoying an increased freedom and 
vision, and also thereby allowing some departed 
spirit to make use of the partially vacated organism 
for the sake of communication with other spirits still 
incarnate on earth. I claim that much knowledge 
has already thus been acquired, while much more is 
likely to follow. 

DR. DAVID W. WELLS t t t 

Experiments like those published by Hyslop are 
the only evidence which appeals to me as at all con- 
vincing. 

Browning's "demand for a future," and Fisk's 
refusal to believe the opposite, and Ingersoll's 
"hope" seem to me no stronger reasons for future 
existence than the Christians faith. 

For the mass of material the Society for Psychical 
Research has accumulated there are but two expla- 
nations : 

First. They are all phenomena of the sub-con- 
scious, perhaps supernormal, living mind; or 

Second. There is evidence of the presence of dis- 
embodied, previously living minds. 

I am inclined to accept this latter conclusion as 
the more probable, but I cannot as yet exclude the 
first as a possible explanation. 



The Psychical Researchers 121 

It devolves upon one who has discarded the older 
arguments as inconclusive to exercise great care 
lest he accept as evidence phenomena which further 
investigation shall refute. 

DR. RICHARD HODGSON t t t 

During a period of twelve years I have had, 
through the mediumship of Mrs. Piper, communi- 
cations with the "spirits" of those who have been for 
some time dead. During the first few years I abso- 
lutely disbelieved in her power. I had but one 
object, to discover fraud and trickery, and I had had 
plenty of experience with these. Frankly, I went to 
Mrs. Piper, with Professor James, about twelve 
years ago, with the object of unmasking her. 
To-day I am prepared to say that I believe in the 
possibility of receiving messages from what is called 
the world of spirits. I entered the house profoundly 
materialistic, not believing in the continuance of life 
after death, and to-day I simply say, I believe. The 
proof has been given to me in such a way as to 
remove from me the possibility of a doubt. 

The influence which guides Mrs. Piper announced 
that in the future its action would be exercised in 
such a way as to diminish the distance which sep- 
arates the two states — the state before death and the 
state subsequent to death. The change took place 
in June, 1897. The earlier guides, Phinuit, Pelham, 
and others, quitted in effect the circle of Mrs. Piper's 



122 Proofs of Life After Death 

influence, and their places were taken by two indi- 
viduals in particular, who actually direct the com- 
munications which she receives. We recognize the 
first, who communicates by the voice, under the 
name of Imperator, and the second, who writes, is 
known as Rector. I have received from the first 
innumerable communications, especially on the rela- 
tions which exist between man and the infinite. 

What my future beliefs may be I do not know. 
Rontgen suggested that certain special effects pro- 
duced in his famous experiments were due to rays 
whose vibrations were longitudinal to the path of 
propagation, but later experiments have tended to 
show that they are due to vibrations of the same 
general character as those with which we were 
familiar, but of a higher order of frequency. And it 
may be that further experiment in the lines of inves- 
tigation before us may lead me to change my view; 
but at the present time I cannot profess to have any 
doubt but that the chief "communicators" to whom 
I have referred in the pages of my report to the Soci- 
ety for Psychical Research, part XXXIII, vol. 
XIII, on the trance-phenomena of Mrs. Piper, are 
veritably the personalities that they claim to be, that 
they have survived the change we call death, and 
that they have directly communicated with us whom 
we call living, through Mrs. Piper's entranced 
organism, * * * 

The superficial observer, especially if he has not 



The Psychical Researchers 123 

revised his conceptions of what he should expect 
from the "returning dead," and does not constantly 
keep before his mind the conditions involved in their 
returning through Mrs. Piper's entranced organism, 
— the fragmentary and obscure utterances of which 
he will find so many examples in the report referred 
to, might not unnaturally be regarded, in the incipi- 
ent stages of a "spirit's" effort to communicate, as 
the incoherent output of a disordered and disrupting 
intelligence; but a closer analysis reveals that in 
many of these the want of coherence lies not pri- 
marily in the source of the information, but in the 
new untried methods of its distribution. Behind 
them is manifest, and grows more and more mani- 
fest, the suggestion of some larger knowledge, the 
presence of some persistent personality that knew 
and knows us well. * * * 

If, indeed, each one of us is a "spirit" that sur- 
vives the death of the fleshly organism, there are 
certain suppositions that I think we may not unrea- 
sonably make concerning the ability of the dis- 
carnate "spirit" to communicate with those yet 
incarnate. Even under the best of conditions for 
communication — which I am supposing for the 
nonce to be possible — it may well be that the apti- 
tude for communicating clearly may be as rare as 
the gifts that make a great artist, or a great mathe- 
matician, or a great philosopher. It may be a com- 
pletely erroneous assumption that all persons, young 



124 Proofs of Life After Death 

or old, good or evil, vigorous or sickly, and what- 
ever their lives or deaths may have been, are at all 
comparable with one another in their capacity to 
convey clear statements from the "other world" to 
this. 

Again, it may well be that, owing to the change 
connected with death itself, the "spirit" may at first 
be much confused, and such confusion may last for 
a long time; and even after the "spirit" has become 
accustomed to its new environment, it is not an 
unreasonable supposition that if it came into some 
such relation to another living human organism as 
it once maintained with its own former organism it 
would find itself confused by that relation. The 
state might be like that of awakening from a pro- 
longed period of unconsciousness into strange sur- 
roundings. 

If my own ordinary body could be preserved in its 
present state, and I could absent myself from it for 
days or months or years, and continue my existence 
under another set of conditions altogether, and if I 
could then return to my own body, it might well be 
that I should be very confused and incoherent at 
first in my manifestations by means of it. How 
much more would this be the case were I to return 
to another human body. I might be troubled witH 
various forms of aphasia and agraphia (loss of words 
and ability to express thought by signs, etc.), might 
be particularly liable to failures of inhibition 



The Psychical Researchers 125 

(restraint), might find the conditions oppressive and 
exhausting, and my state of mind would probably 
be of an automatic and dreamlike character. 

Now the communicators through Mrs. Piper's 
trance exhibit precisely the kind of confusion and 
incoherence which it seems to me we have some 
reason a priori (from the nature of the case) to 
expect if they are actually what they claim to be. 

But this is not all. And here I must again state 
my conclusion as a result of practical experience, 
which will, however, I have no doubt, be confirmed 
by all those who have had much to do with Mrs. 
Piper's trance or similar manifestations. If the 
hypothesis of telepathy from the living is acted upon 
in anything like the ordinary experimental way, the 
supernormal results will be lessened. If the investi- 
gator persistently refuses to regard the communica- 
tions as coming from the sources claimed, he will 
not get the best results. If, on the other hand, he 
acts on the hypothesis that the communicators are 
"spirits," acting under adverse conditions, and if he 
treats them as he would a living person in a similar 
state, he will find an improvement in the communi- 
cations. 

I have several times got better results alone from 
communicators who were strangers to me, than 
the intimate friends or relatives were able to get, 
and including information unknown to me. To 
describe it as it appears, the "spirit" in the attempt 



126 Proofs of Life After Death 

to communicate seemed like a living friend wander- 
ing in his mind owing to an accident. To clear such 
a person's mind we should soothe him, not bother 
him with questions, but let him unburden his mind 
of whatever his dominant ideas were, remind him of 
strong associations that were dear to him, express 
sympathy, etc., etc.; but to ask him one question 
after another, to put him through a cross-examina- 
tion and expect him to have all the answers ready at 
once, would obviously not be conducive to anything 
but a worse confusion. And having tried the 
hypothesis of telepathy from the living for several 
years, and the "spirit" hypothesis also for several 
years, I have no hesitation in afftrming with the 
most absolute assurance that the "spirit" hypothesis 
is justified by its fruits, and the other hypothesis is 
not. 

(In another brief expression of his sentiments and 
conclusions respecting the result up to the present 
time of the great work being carried on by the Soci- 
ety for Psychical Research, and also his personal 
opinion of their meaning and value. Dr. Hodgson 
speaks as follows:) 

If I might put briefly my own opinion as to the 
chief constructive lines of our work, I should say, 
telepathy has been established; that there is much 
evidence of clairvoyance, premonitions and similar 
phenomena; that there is yet other evidence depend- 
ing on spontaneous experiences that seem to point 
towards the action of deceased persons; that in the 



j& 



The Psychical Researchers 127 

articles of Mr. F. W. H. Myers (contained in the 
published proceedings of the society and much yet 
to be published) there is an overwhelming evidence 
drawn from various sources that human personality 
is much wider and deeper than most persons have 
been in the habit of supposing; and that all these 
related phenomena are pointing more and more to 
the conclusion that man survives death. I believe 
myself that some general relation between the vari- 
ous groups of phenomena as Mr. Myers has exhib- 
ited will be proven true, and that eventually there 
will be completely satisfactory evidence, drawn from 
empirical sources, and based on strictly scientific 
grounds, entirely independent of what might be 
called theological and philosophical considerations, 
that man indeed does not die with the death of his 
body. 

I have myself been led to this conviction as a 
result of many years of investigation with Mrs. 
Piper. I need not point out of what momentous 
importance it would be to the human race to reach a 
well assured affirmative scientific conclusion con- 
cerning the question of a future life. 

DR. FREDERICK VAN EEDEN t t 

Passive in observation, patient in action, prudent 
in advance, we must refrain from seeking to unveil 
with over-hasty hands the secrets yet hidden from 
us by the eternal God. * * * Eagerness, in com- 



128 Proofs of Life After Death 

parison with which patience is often considered 
phlegmatic, is a general we. kness of the Anglo- 
Saxon. It accounts for his wonderful achievements, 
but also for his mistakes. And this is true also in 
the difficult domain of psychical investigation. 

Among the serious men of science who have 
taken the matter of pyschical phenomena in hand 
patiently and without prejudice, complete disbe- 
lievers are becoming scarce. But the believers in 
the genuineness of the phenomena are still divided 
into two well-defined parties. 

The first group accepts almost completely the 
view of the spiritists and believes in the influence of 
spirits, of impalpable and, in the ordinary way, 
imperceptible beings, upon the mind and body of a 
living human being. 

The second group acknowledges the facts as 
extraordinary and inexplicable by ordinary causes, 
but does not admit that as yet anything has been 
discovered which forces us inevitably to believe in 
the existence of spirits. Everything may perhaps be 
explained, according to them, by faculties personal 
to the medium, such as telepathy and clairvoyance. 

To the first group belong, as we all know, very 
distinguished men of science, s h as Alfred Russel 
Wallace and Sir William Crookes, and also the man 
whose loss we so deeply deplore, Frederic Myers. 

The first theory is much the simpler as an expla- 
nation. Once given the possibility of the action 



The Psychical Researchers 129 

upon our existence of beings whose material condi- 
tions of existence are quite imperceptible and even 
inconceivable for us, all the rest is easily explained. 
As a philosophical conception this view has nothing 
in it absurd or improbable. On the contrary, as a 
matter of probability, we must agree that it is far 
more likely that there exists an infinity of imper- 
ceptible beings, even in our immediate proximity, 
than that we should be the ultimate form of life, or 
that we should have reached an exhaustive power of 
perception of other living beings. 

We know that our sensory perception is limited to 
five modes, or channels, each of them embracing 
only a small part of an infinite scale of vibratory 
motions. It is, philosophically speaking, quite as 
absurd to believe that every form of life and exist- 
ence must fall under our power of observation, as 
that there are no other celestial bodies but those 
which our eyes can see. As expressed by Spinoza, 
"there is not only infinity in sequence of time, or 
extension of space, but also in diversity of being at 
the same place and the sam.e time." * * * 

I think I may make a definite and clear statement 
of my present opinion, which has been wavering 
between the two sides for a long time. I should not 
give any definite statement if I did not feel pre- 
pared to do so, however eagerly it might be desired, 
for I think it the first duty of a scientist and philos- 
opher to abstain from definite statements in uncer- 



130 Proofs of Life After Death 

tain matters. And in observations like these we 
must reckon with a very general inclination to deny- 
on second thoughts what seemed absolutely con- 
vincing on the spot and at the moment. Every 
phenomenon or occurrence of a very extraordinary 
character is only believed after repeated observation. 
After the first experience one's mind refuses to stay 
in the unaccustomed channel of thought, and next 
morning we say: "I must have been mistaken, I 
must have overlooked this or that, there must be 
some ordinary explanation." 

But at this present moment, when I read the notes 
of my sittings with Mrs. Thompson held in London 
and Paris, it is impossible for me to abstain from the 
conviction that I have really been the witness, were 
it only for a few minutes, of the voluntary mani- 
festations of a deceased person. 

Let me give an instance from my experience 
with Mrs. Thompson. We had taken every precau- 
tion at my first sitting that the medium should hear 
nothing about my coming, my name, or my nation- 
ality. I came unexpectedly, and remained an almost 
silent witness. And yet, at the first sitting, the name 
Frederick — my Christian name and that of my 
father — v/as given; an apparent attempt was made to 
pronounce my surname ("Fon," "Fondalin"), and 
an allusion was made to my medical profession. 

At my second sitting, though I had not seen Mrs. 
Thompson in the interval, the name "van Eeden" 



The Psychical Researchers 131 

was given in full, pronounced as if it were read by an 
Englishman (Eden), also the name of my country 
("Netherlands"), and the Christian names of my 
wife ("Martha") and of one of my children were 
given, and at the beginning of the third sitting the 
name of the place where I live ("Bussum"). 

These different names were given more or less at 
random, not always in their proper relation, but 
nevertheless in such a way that simple guessing was 
out of the question. She began {e. g._ at the third 
sitting) to call me "Mr. Bostim," "Bussom," or 
"Bussum," mistaking the name of my place for my 
own name; then she asked what "Netherlands" 
meant; she said at the first sitting that I had a rela- 
tion called Frederik; at the third, that it was my own 
name, and that I was a "gardener of Eden," and 
so on. At each following sitting this confusion 
became a little clearer in her mind. 

To explain this, coincidence will not do. The 
possibility of fraud seems untenable. I got infor- 
mation about objects whose origin was known 
only to myself. I brought a lock of hair of 
a man who had lived and died at Utrecht, and 
the hair was immediately connected with that nam^e, 
and on subsequent occasions referred to as the 
"Utrecht hair". I brought a piece of clothing that 
had belonged to a young man who had com- 
mitted suicide. Nobody in the world knew that 
I had kept it, nor that I had taken it to England 



132 Proofs of Life After Death 

with me for this purpose, and yet I got an exact 
description of the young man and the manner of his 
suicide, and even his Christian name was given. 

For me this excluded all fraud or coincidence. 

The young man mentioned had recovered from 
his first attempt at suicide (though the control, 
"Nelly," did not find out this particular), but the 
wound in his throat left his voice hoarse arid gave 
him a peculiar little cough. As soon as I came near 
Mrs. Thompson with the piece of clothing, her voice 
became more or less hoarse, and bye and bye the 
same peculiar little cough appeared, and grew more 
accentuated at each subsequent sitting. After three 
sittings it kept on even in the intervals between the 
sittings, and in the end did not leave her altogether 
until I had left England, taking with me the piece of 
clothing — a flannel vest. 

We are obliged in this difficult matter to rely a 
good deal on our own personal impressions, to judge 
by probability, and to form more or less intuitive 
conceptions. This may not appear very exact, but it 
is unavoidable, and we shall find a similar course 
pursued in many other branches of science. Astron- 
omy, for instance, is based principally on personal 
impressions — ^but impressions which are verified by 
many persons, and on intuitive ideas of probability 
— but ideas which are confirmed by repeated obser- 
vation. 

My personal impression has varied. A number of 



The Psychical Researchers 133 

small particulars, which will be found in my notes 
(published in the Proceedings of the Society for 
Psychical Research, June, 1902), produced on me 
when taken ett bloc the effect of perfect evidence. 
To regard these all as guesses made at random 
seemed absurd; to explain them by telepathy forced 
and insufficient. 

REV. JOHN W. QUIMBY t t t 

I would say in answer to your inquiry that to me 
personally one of the strongest arguments for the 
continuance of personal identity after death has 
been found in the great mass of phenomena inves- 
tigated by the Society for Psychical Research, 
London, and especially in the inferences drawn 
therefrom by a considerable number of eminent sci- 
entific men, some of them among the greatest of 
modern times. 

DR. WILFRID LAY t t t 

For proof to persuade myself of the continued 
existence of my personality after death I have never 
felt the need. Present life would lose meaning for 
me without this belief. If I ever attempted to per- 
suade another, by logical argument, I should point 
to the work of Professor J. H. Hyslop with Mrs. 
Piper as the strongest scientific evidence, yet pro- 
duced,, of the life hereafter. 



134 Proofs of Life After Death 

PROF. SIR OLIVER LODGE t t 

If anyone cares to hear what sort of conviction 
has been born in upon my own mind, as a sci- 
entific man, by some twenty years' familiarity 
with these questions which concern us (Psychical 
Research), I am very willing to reply as frankly as 
I can. 

First, then, I am, for all personal purposes, con- 
vinced of the persistence of human existence beyond 
bodily death; and though I am unable to justify that 
belief in a full and complete manner, yet it is a belief 
which has been produced by scientific evidence; that 
is, it is based upon facts and experience, though I 
might find it impossible to explain categorically how 
the facts have produced that conviction. Suffice it 
to say for the present that it is not in a simple and 
obvious way, nor one that can be grasped in an hour 
or two, except by those who have seriously studied 
the subject, and are consequently equally entitled to 
an opinion of their own. 

If pressed, I must confess that I do not see how 
the hypothesis of the continued existence of human 
personalities, so long as they are disconnected with 
bodies and muscles, is any real help in explaining 
ultra-normal physical movements; except that since 
the movements show traces of what we ordinarily 
speak of as will and intelligence, they do suggest the 
agency of live things of some kind. 

But then I see no reason for limiting the possibili- 



The Psychical Researchers 135 

ties of existence — it may be of inter-planetary or of 
extra-spacial existence — to those friends of ours who 
have recently inhabited this planet. 

Eliminating physical phenomena therefore for the 
present, suppose that I am asked further: Do you 
consider that trance utterances are ever due to the 
agency of departed persons? I am bound to say that, 
as regards the content or intelligence of the mes- 
sage, I have known cases which do very strongly 
indicate some form of access to a persistent por- 
tion of the departed personality; and occasionally, 
though rarely, the actual psychical agency of a 
deceased person is indicated. 

The medium when awakened does not usually 
remember, is not really conscious of, the communi- 
cation which has been spoken or written: not until 
he or she returns to the sta.e of trance. Nor should 
I expect the ostensible communicator, so long as he 
is anything like ourselves, to remember or to be 
properly conscious of what has been, as it were, 
drawn from his memory, until he too returns once 
more into the same dream-like or semi-conscious 
or sub-conscious condition. There may be all grades 
of recollection, however, analogous to the various 
grades of reminiscence of ordinary dreams, as and 
after we wake. 

One hypothesis concerning the agency of unem- 
bodied spirits is that they themselves temporarily 
occupy and animate some portion of the body of the 



136 Proofs of Life After Death 

medium, and thereby control a sufficient part of the 
physiological mechanism to convey the message 
they desire. The impression which such an hypothe- 
sis as this makes upon us depends upon the view 
that we take of our own normal powers: it derives 
any prima facie reasonableness which it may possess 
from the theory that we ourselves are mental enti- 
ties, to which the names soul, spirit, etc., have been 
popularly applied, v/ho may be said to form or 
accrete, to inhabit and to control a certain assem- 
blage of terrestrial atoms, which we call our bodies; 
by means of which we, as psychological agents, can 
manage to convey more or less intelligible messages 
to other similarly clothed or incarnate intelligences: 
em.ploying for that purpose such physical processes 
as the production of aerial vibrations, or the record 
left by ink traces upon paper. 

Given that we are such mental entities or psycho- 
logical intelligences, with the power of accreting and 
shaping matter by the act of feeding, we must note 
in passing the important fact that the manufacture 
of our bodies, just spoken of, is a feat accomplished 
by life without mind, or at least with only sub-con- 
scious mind: it is wholly beyond the power of our 
conscious mind to perform. Feed a child, and in 
due course unconsciously he becomes a man — a pro- 
cess beyond our control or understanding and 
wholly transcending our utmost executive skill. 
Note further that it is the same unconscious life, or 



The Psychical Researchers 137 

part of the body, or whatever is the proper term, 
which manages nearly all the ordinary vital pro- 
cesses, and disposes of our food or gives us indiges- 
tion as it sees fit. This may seem a frivolous 
interlude, but it is important in connection with 
what follows. It is perhaps obviously important in 
connection with the whole business of the inter- 
action between mind and matter. 

The hypothesis which seeks to explain the control 
of a medium's body in trance by the agency of dis- 
carnate spirits, presumes that an elaborate machine 
like our bodies is capable of being occasionally used, 
not only by the mind or intelligence which manu- 
factured it, so to speak, but temporarily and with 
difBculty by other minds or intelligences permitted 
to make use of it. 

There are many difficulties here, and one of them 
is the assumption that such other intelligences exist. 
But that, I confess, is to me not a very improbable 
assumption ; for knowing what we already certainly 
know of the material universe, of its immense scope, 
and the number of habitable worlds it contains (I 
do not say inhabited, for that the evidence does not 
yet reveal, but habitable worlds), realizing also the 
absurdity of the idea that our few senses have 
instructed us concerning all the possibilities of exist- 
ence which can be associated in our minds with the 
generalized idea of "habitable"; perceiving also the 
immense variety of life which luxuriates everywhere 



138 Proofs of Life After Death 

on this planet wherever the conditions permit: I find 
it impossible to deny the probability that there may 
be in space an immense range of life and intelligence 
of which at present we know nothing. 

Indeed, we ourselves are here on this planet and 
in this body for only a few score revolutions of the 
earth round the sun: a thousand months exceeds 
■what we call the "lifetime" of most of us. Where or 
what we were before, and where or what we shall be 
after, are questions — intimately and necessarily con- 
nected with each other. 

But granting the possibility of a far greater and 
more widespread prevalence of life or mind than 
w^e have been accustomed to contemplate — a prev- 
alence as extensive, perhaps, as that of matter — 
what is the probability that the different classes of 
life and mind interfere or inter-operate with each 
other? It is purely a question for experience and 
observation. 

Now, by far the greater number of the physical 
phenomena which are asserted to take place in the 
presence of a medium involve nothing in themselves 
extraordinary: the production of scent, for instance, 
the introduction of flowers and other objects, move- 
ments of furniture, the impress on pliotographic 
plates, are all of a nature that can easily be managed 
by normal means, given time and opportunity; and 
the only thing requiring explanation is how they are 
managed under the given conditions, more or less 



The Psychical Researchers 139 

stringently devised to prevent their normal occur- 
rence. 

But there is a residue of traditional physical phe- 
nomena which involve an effect beyond ordinary 
human power to accomplish. For instance, the 
asserted resistance of the human skin and nerves to 
fire, usually though not always when under religious 
emotion or in some trance state ; or the extraction of 
a solid object from a permanently closed box; or, 
what is much more commonly asserted than the 
other two, the materialization or appearance of tem- 
porary human forms. 

I confess that I myself have never seen any of 
these things achieved under satisfactory conditions, 
but the evidence of Sir William Crookes and others 
for certain of them is very detailed; and it is almost 
as difficult to resist the testimony as it is to accept 
the things testified. 

Imagination in science is permissible, provided 
one's imaginings are not treated as facts, nor even 
theories, but only as working hypotheses — a kind 
of hypothesis which, properly treated, is essential to 
the progress of every scientific worker. Let us 
imagine, then, as a working hypothesis, that our 
subliminal self — the other, and greater part of us — 
is in touch with another order of existence, and that 
it is occasionally able to communicate, or somehow, 
perhaps unconsciously, transmit to the fragment in 
the body something of the information accessible to 



140 Proofs of Life After Death 

it. This guess, if permissible, would contain a clue 
to a possible explanation of clairvoyance. We should 
then be like icebergs floating in an ocean, with only 
a fraction exposed to sun and air and observation: 
the rest — by far the greater bulk, eleven-twelfths — 
submerged in a connecting medium, submerged and 
occasionally in subliminal or sub-aqueous contact 
with others, while still the peaks, the visible bergs, 
are far separate. 

One cannot but sympathize to some extent with 
those philosophers who urge that the progress of 
humanity has been achieved by attention to a devel- 
opment of our full consciousness, and that reversion 
to the sub-conscious or to dream states is a step 
back. It must be noted, however, that the adjective 
"subliminal," as we understand it, is not suggestive 
of subordinate or subsidiary, but is far more nearly 
related to "sublime;" a statement which, considered 
objectively, the philosophers in question would 
probably disallow. If they mean that for the active 
and practical concerns of life consciousness must be 
our guide and our adviser, I am with them; but if 
they mean (as I am sure they do not, when pressed) 
that inspiration is attained through consciousness, or 
that it is unlawful and unfruitful to investigate the 
sub-conscious, where (I suggest) lie the roots of the 
connection between mind and matter, then I must 
join issue with them. So might an iceberg, glorying 
in its crisp solidity and sparkling pinnacles, resent 



The Psychical Researchers 141 

attention paid to its submerged subliminal support- 
ing region, or to the saline liquid out of which it 
arose, and into which in due course it will some day 
return. 
"We feel that we are greater than we know." 
Or, reversing the metaphor, we might liken our 
present state to that of the hulls of ships submerged 
in a dim ocean among many strange beasts, pro- 
pelled in a blind manner through space; proud, per- 
haps, of accumulating many barnacles as decoration; 
only recognizing our destination by bumping 
against the dock wall; and with no cognizance of the 
deck and the cabins, the spars and the sails, no 
thought of the sextant and the compass and the 
captain, no perception of the lookout on the mast, 
of the distant horizon, no vision of objects far ahead, 
dangers to be avoided, destinations to be reached, 
other ships to be spoken with by other means than 
bodily contact — a region of sunshine and cloud, of 
space, of perception, and of intelligence, utterly 
inaccessible to the parts below the water line. 

To suppose that we know it all: to suppose that 
we have grasped its main outlines, that we realize 
pretty completely not only what is in it, but the still 
more stupendous problem of what is not and cannot 
be in it — is a presumptuous exercise of limited intel- 
ligence, only possible to a certain very practical and 
useful order of brain, which has good solid work of 
a commonplace kind to do in the world, and has 



142 Proofs of Life After Death 

been restricted in its outlook, let us say by Provi- 
dence, in order that it may do that one thing and do 
it well. Some of these gnostic persons have been 
men of science, others have been men of letters, 
some of them again politicians and men of business; 
som.e few of them have called themselves philoso- 
phers, but the world has not thought them its 
greatest philosophers. 

The instinct of the world in the long run, though 
only in the long run, is to be trusted; and the great 
men whom it has picked out as philosophers of the 
very first magnitude' — the philosopher Plato, of the 
older time, and the philosopher Kant, of the more 
modern era — did not so limit their conception of the 
possible; nor have the greatest poets, those whom 
humanity has canonized among its greatest poets — 
Virgil, let us say, and Wordsworth and Tennyson — 
neither have they looked with dim beclouded eyes 
on the present of the universe, or on the past and 
the future of man. 

Hear Tennyson on the origin of life and the ante- 
cedents of human existence: — 

Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep. 
From that true world within the world we see,. 
Whereof our world is hut the hounding shore. 

Meanwhile what are we to do? To inquire, to 
criticise, to discover, but also to live — to live this 
life here and now: aided thereto, it may be by a labo- 



The Psychical Researchers 143 

Tiously acquired certainty that it is only an interlude 
in a more splendid drama. With some people, belief 
lias preceded and frustrated inquiry : others there are 
with whom investigation has resulted in belief: and 
yet again others to whom belief continues unattain- 
able in spite of conscientious effort and research. 

Those who feel assured of a future existence may 
be thankful; but those who cannot feel so assured 
ivith them also it is well, if they apply their energies 
to service on this earthly plane, and reap the whole- 
some and natural joys accessible to us in our present 
state. 

Thanks to the human heart by which we live. 
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears. 

To me the meanest -flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 

ANDREW LANG t t t 

I do not think that the question of a future life can 
"be investigated except by the ordinary methods of 
psychological inquiry. At present I think there is 
a fair presumption that in time, data for the forma- 
tion of an opinion may be collected. 

DR. MI NOT J. SAVAGE t t t 

If you will get my book — "Life Beyond Death"^ 
— ^you will find it will answer your question. I treat 
in it both the argument side, and I also give facts 
which I think have a bearing on the subject. 

1 Published by Putnams, New York. 



144 Proofs of Life After Death 

I have been accustomed to say and think for many 
years that "the scientific method" is the only 
method of knowledge. What does this mean? It 
means that whatever one may feel or think or believe 
or regard as probable, he does not know unless it is 
capable of demonstration in accordance with the sci- 
entific method. 

Let us note the steps of progress in the scientific 
method, so that this matter may be made clear to 
any intelligent reader, whether scientific or not. 

1. The first step is observation. I open my eyes 
(whether outer or inner) and see a fact. This proves 
nothing beyond my own personal impression. If I 
am color-blind or ignorant or prejudiced, my seeing 
may be incorrect and so not correspond to any 
reality. 

2. So there must be repeated observaiion and 
corroborative observation on the part of others. 

3. Then, after a number of facts appear to be sat- 
isfactorily determined, a tentative theory may be 
formed in accordance with these facts. But this 
theory is always open to revision, provided other 
facts are discovered which are not in accord with the 
theory. The "law of parsimony" demands also that 
the nearest and easiest theory which will explain the 
facts shall have the preference. That is, a strained 
or far-fetched theory must not be dragged in where 
the facts can be explained by an easier or more "nat- 
ural" method. 



The Psychical Researchers 145 

4. When a large number of facts are satisfactorily 
established and all or most of them can be most 
easily explained in the light of some particular the- 
ory, that theory is regarded as scientifically estab- 
lished. * * * 

Now I submit this, the scientific method, can be 
followed in observing and proving anything which 
is real and which touches us, and so comes into the 
field of observation. But while a man can com- 
mand the action of certain forces and order the con- 
duct of his observations in his laboratory; or while 
he may count on the absolute uniformity of the 
motions of the heavenly bodies, there are other facts, 
and those of far greater importance, which he can- 
not treat in this way, although he may still be true 
to the scientific method. You cannot order people 
round, as a chemist may his elements, and yet fact 
concerning people may be scientifically demon- 
strated. The same thing is true of the people in the 
other life — provided there are any. It is conceivable 
that "a spirit" may be present and communicate in 
certain circumstances. Identity even may be con- 
ceivably established. And yet the precise experi- 
ment one may not be able to repeat at will, for the 
simple but satisfactory reason that, ex hypothesi, 
another will is concerned; the person may not be 
present the next time; he is not under orders; and 
the conditions may not be capable of duplication by 
anybody who happens to come along. 



146 Proofs of Life After Death 

The Society for Psychical Research is engaged in 
investigating a large body of facts, whatever may 
ultimately be regarded as the explanation of them. 
Several different explanations have been offered. 
The principal ones are these: 

First. Fraud. 

Second. Auto-suggestion; that is, that the sitter 
unintentionally "gives himself away" — as the phrase 
goes. He unconsciously imparts the information 
which so astonishes him when he gets it back again. 

Third. That the facts are the work of the sub- 
conscious mind of either of the sitters, the psychic, 
or all together. 

Fourth. Mind reading or telepathy. 

Fifth. The "spirit" theory. This means, of course, 
that persons who have "died" and are now in the 
life which is ordinarily regarded as the abode of 
silence and invisibility, can and do (at least occa- 
sionally) manifest their presence and communicate 
their thoughts. 

Now, in the first place, it can be settled whether 
any of these claimed facts are facts. Then, in the 
second place, it can be determined as to whether 
any one of these theories can explain the facts. If 
it can, then it would be provisionally established as 
a scientific hypothesis, in precisely the same sense 
that the theory of the universe is established, and 
with as scientific a validity. * * * 

I submit then to all competent thinkers that the 



The Psychical Researchers 147 

psychical problems can be scientifically investigated, 
and that a true scientific theory concerning them 
can be framed and verified. 

Would it not be worth the study of years to know, 
if it be possible, that we shall see our friends again, 
and shall know them, and that we shall resume the 
companionships that have been dearer to us than 
life here? Why, if this could be once known, the 
earth would never again be draped in black, the 
skies could never weep with rain ; every wind would 
be an anthem and every morning the dawn of an 
eternal day. 

The number of persons in the civilized world 
to-day who have more or less questioning about con- 
tinued personal conscious existence after death, is 
unspeakably greater than it was a century ago, and 
beyond any dispute the number is increasing just in 
the most important part of this human life of ours. 
It is increasing among the thinkers, the readers, 
those who are becoming of such a state of mind that 
they must have proof before they can quite accept 
any proposition. * * >!= 

Half the human race, nearly, believes to-day that 
mind is everything and matter is illusion ; and yet, at 
the same time, it universally denies the conscious 
personal existence of the soul. So that the two do 
not necessarily go together, and believing one is 
not quite enough to prove the other. 

Let us go back, for a moment, so many million 



148 Proofs of Life After Death 

years that there is no use of trying to count them, to 
a time when the whole of space that is now occupied 
by any part of the universe that we can investigate 
with our largest telescopes was fire-mist, chaos, con- 
taining neither planet nor sun, nor satellite of any 
kind. * * * Millions of years roll away, the fire- 
mist moves and starts up centers of rotation; and bye 
and bye you have somewhere in the midst of it a 
nebula, or nebulae, only a thicker condensation of 
fire-mist, but with perhaps a center a little more 
dense than the outermost parts. The motion goes 
on; bye and bye the center separates itself from the 
outermost parts by its greater rapidity of motion, 
and so flings off a ring — such a ring as you may 
discover around Saturn to-day. This ring cools, 
breaks, its parts tumble together, and by their rota- 
tion assume the form of a sphere and begin their 
motion around the central mass. This central mass 
flings off another ring, and that falls into fragments 
and coheres into another sphere, and the central 
mass throws off another ring. This is the process, 
they tell us, that has been going on in the formation 
of our little solar system, the outer ones flung off 
first, and then another and another, until we get 
down to our little earth, which, in the process of 
cooling threw off a ring which condensed and made 
our moon. 

Now, after thousands of years had gone by, 
this little earth of ours became cool enough so 



The Psychical Researchers 149 

that certain kinds of life could live upon it in 
the ooze of the water's edge. * * * \Ye have 
the fishes, the reptiles, and the birds, then the 
mammals, all the gigantic animals, and then at 
last a feeble sort of being that did not know 
it was man, that we now call by that name — 
feebler than almost all the other animals of its 
size. There had been a marvelous development of 
the brain ; and though it was weaker than almost all 
its enemies, it began to have the power to outwit 
its enemies, out-know, out-think them. Under the 
form of cunning it developed an ability to master the 
rest of the world. Then this cunning developed 
into a higher form, the intellect, which ruled man- 
kind. Then this animal developed something higher 
than intellect — the power to love, and out of love 
came conscience; and this strange creature became a 
moral being. And then out of the moral being, and 
beyond it, began to appear a spiritual nature. 

There was a time when the mightiest power on 
the face of the earth was muscle; then there came a 
time when the mightiest power was cunning that 
could outwit muscle; then a time of higher form of 
intellect, which was superior to muscle or cunning; 
then love and a conscience which was mightier than 
they, until to-day, in spite of all the evil there is* in 
the world, the mightiest power on the face of the 
earth is the moral ideal. * * * 

So we are to-day in regard to scientific study. 



150 Proofs of Life After Death 

The four thousand years of the world that we can 
clearly claim to be historical, when compared with 
the time of the human race on this planet is not an 
hour in a day; it is rather one hour perhaps in a 
week. Is it not perfectly natural, then, that, begin- 
ning with the first we know of our human history, 
there should have been spasmodic, sporadic mani- 
festations of what we call the spiritual nature of 
man, breaking through the guise of flesh; that there 
should now and then, if we are whelmed and sur- 
rounded in a spirit world, appear a face, as in a 
glimpse, a voice be heard, a hand felt by someone 
more than usually psychically sensitive? Is not 
this just what, on that theory, you would have 
expected? * * * 

I believe that we are to-day beginning to have 
manifestations of a new and higher, a more spiritual 
type of man that ought to be precisely what we 
should be looking for. The world is getting ripe for 
it. We are on the edge of it; and I believe with my 
whole soul that it will not be long before immor- 
tality will be as much discovered as America was 
discovered by Columbus. These spasmodic mani- 
festations that have been seen and heard and felt in 
all religions, in all races, for the last three or four 
thousand years, are just the first little blossoms of 
spring, frost-nipped, trodden under foot, and for- 
gotten; but they have been prophecy, and the 
prophecy of that which I believe is to come. 



* * 



The Psychical Researchers 151 

It seems to me, indeed, most striking, that from 
the beginning of the world until the last decade or 
two there has never been on the part of humanity 
anything like a serious investigation of a series of 
claimed facts, which, if true, or only partly true, are 
the most important facts in the world. Think of it! 
Until the year 1882, to be specific, whatever particu- 
lar individuals may have done, humanity had never 
made a combined, serious, scientific attempt to find 
the truth in this great matter. 

So, with me, it has come to this: That, after years 
of investigation, a large number of the leading think- 
ers, students, authors, scientists, psychical scientists, 
chemists, mathematicians — great minds — have come 
to believe that there is no possible way of explaining 
that which has been over and over again proved to 
be fact, without supposing that they had been in 
communication with some invisible intelligence. 

That, at present, is my belief. 

Now I wish to mark very distinctly one point that 
appears to me to be of great importance. We may 
be able, clearly, scientifically, beyond any question, 
to establish the fact of another life beyond this; and 
yet we may never be able to know much about it in 
detail until we get there. I speak of this, and wish 
to speak of it with emphasis, because a thousand 
times the question is asked me, why, if anybody has 
reported from the other side, have they not told us 
all about it? 



152 Proofs of Life After Death 

Will you note carefully with me one fact? All our 
knowledge here is limited of necessity by our past 
experience, the experience of the race. If I were to 
attempt to describe to you any new thing or any 
new place, I could do it only by comparing it with 
something with which you are already familiar; and, 
just in so far as it was unlike anything with which 
you were familiar, just in so far it would be simply 
impossible for me to describe it to you so that you 
could have an intelligible idea of it. 

Do you know that I can see, only after the 
ethereal vibrations reach a certain number in a sec- 
ond, and that the moment these vibrations pass 
beyond another certain number, I cease to see? In 
other words, I can see a narrow space while these 
vibrations are kept within certain limits; while on 
either hand the universe stretches off into infinity, 
invisible to our present sense. So I can hear within 
certain limits of ethereal vibrations; up to a certain 
point I hear nothing. There is not produced on the 
drum of the ear the efifect capable of being trans- 
lated — in the mysterious fashion of which we know 
nothing — as sound to the brain. After a certain 
number of vibrations have been reached, all is again 
quiet to our senses. Huxley tells us that, if our 
ears were adapted to take in all the vibrations, the 
noises of the growing of flowers in the night would 
be as loud as a thunder-storm. 

In other words — and this is what I wish you to 



The Psychical Researchers 153 

get from what I am saying — there may be millions 
of spiritual creatures walking the earth, pervading 
the atmosphere all around us, real, thrilling, and 
throbbing with life, a life more intense than any we 
know anything about or can dream of, and our pres- 
ent senses take no cognizance of them whatsoever. 
Do not imagine, then, that a person or a thing can- 
not exist because you cannot see or hear or feel 
that person or thing. 

DR. A. D. HUSTED t t t 

In reply to your inquiry, I most certainly believe 
in the continued existence of the soul. My belief is 
based upon experience and in the study of psychol- 
ogy for the past fifteen years. I wish to be under- 
stood as taking no part in Spiritualism of to-day, 
which I regard as fraudulent commercialism, and in 
my opinion souls cannot be communicated with at 
will, or for a stipulated sum. I believe they exer- 
cise their own pleasure in manifesting themselves, 
and "Angels' visits are few and far between." I will 
cite you a case in point along the same lines of 
Flournoy in his work. From India to the Planet 
Mars. I have a lady patient whose deceased sister 
has communicated with her on various occasions in 
my office, after I had put her in a receptive state. A 
gentleman patient who did not know the lady or 
her deceased sister, visited me and I proposed send- 
ing him to the planet Mars, to which he assented; 



154 Proofs of Life After Death 

his talk was something wonderful and was written 
down. He told why Tesla failed in his experiments^ 
as told him by the Maritans (he normally did not 
know there was such a man as Tesla), and many 
other wonderful statements by them; he came in 
contact with the soul of the lady's sister and the con- 
versation was corroborative. Now please exclude 
hysteria or telepathy, etc., from these cases, as I 
assure you they were not factors. I have many other 
experiences on these lines, also photographs of the 
lady mentioned while in that state. 

PROF; J. H. HYSLOP t t t 

(It was reported in the press shortly before the 
appearance of Professor Hyslop's recent report to 
the Society for Psychical Research, on his observa- 
tions of certain trance phenomena of Mrs. Piper, 
that he claimed he would scientifically demonstrate 
within a year's time the immortality of the souL 
Concerning this report, Professor Hyslop says): 

I make no claims to "scientifically demonstrating" 
anything, not even my facts. I have given a pref- 
erence for the spiritistic theory in explanation of my 
alleged facts, in order to force the issue on an 
important investigation and in order to devolve 
upon those who have not accepted any supernormal 
phenomena at all the duty of rescuing me from my 
illusion. 



The Psychical Researchers 155 

(However, Professor Hyslop, after the most 
exhaustive study, the most cold and careful analysis 
of the facts, adopts for the present the theory of 
spiritism as the only sane and reasonable solution of 
the phenomena. He states that this is the least he 
can do. Referring to the conditions under which his 
experiments were performed, and his deductions 
from the results, Professor Plyslop writes) : 

The arrangements for my sittings were made only 
through Dr. Hodgson, and with special care regard- 
ing secrecy. No one except Dr. Hodgson and my 
wife were to know that I was to have sittings, and 
only Dr. Hodgson was to know of the arrange- 
ments. This plan was carried out in entire secrecy. 
The arrangements for the sittings were not made 
with Mrs. Piper in her normal state, but with the 
trance personalities in her trance state. The arrange- 
ments for my sittings were not made in my name, 
but in the pseudonym of "Four times friend," so 
that neither the supraliminal (conscious, objective) 
nor the subliminal (unconscious, subjective) of Mrs. 
Piper could have any clue to my identity. 

When I went to conduct the experiments and 
before reaching the house of Mrs. Piper, about two 
hundred feet from the house and while in a closed 
coach, I put on a mask covering the whole of my 
face, and entered the house wearing the mask, met 
Mrs. Piper, and went on with the sitting in this con- 
dition. When introduced to Mrs. Piper it was under 
the name of Mr. Smith, which is the usual name by 



156 Proofs of Life After Death 

which Dr. Hodgson introduces strangers. I bOwed 
to her without uttering a sound, the object being to 
conceal my voice equally as well as my face. 

In the whole series of my sittings Mrs. Piper 
never heard my voice in her normal state, except 
twice when I changed it into an unnatural tone. In 
the whole course of the sittings, also, I was careful 
not to touch Mrs. Piper, and I never came into any 
contact with her to render any muscular suggestion 
possible, except perhaps half a dozen times when I 
seized the hand while writing to place it on the 
writing-pad which it was escaping. Once I held 
her head while she was straightened in the chair in 
which she was sitting. But at all other times I 
avoided every form of contact that could even make 
muscular suggestion conceivable. 

The facts obtained were either without any ques- 
tions at all, or without questions calculated to sug- 
gest the answers given. I was extremely careful to 
avoid verbal suggestion. 

During the writing I stood behind and to the 
right of Mrs. Piper, in a position which concealed 
any view of me and my movements absolutely from 
any visual knowledge of Mrs. Piper, whether supra- 
liminal or subliminal, even had her eyes been open 
instead of closed in the trance. It was necessary to 
take this position in order to be able to read the 
writing as it went on. 

Mrs. Piper goes into the trance in the following 



The Psychical Researchers 157 

manner: She seats herself in a chair in front of a 
table, upon which are placed two pillows for a head- 
rest when the trance comes on. She may or may not 
engage in conversation while the trance approaches. 
In my case she generally talked to Dr. Hodgson 
about various domestic matters, the weather, etc. 

The approach of the trance is characterized by 
various indications. When the head falls upon the 
pillows, it is arranged by Dr. Hodgson, or other 
sitter, so that the right side of the head lies on the 
palm of the left hand and looking ofif and away from 
the table upon which the writing is done. This sec- 
ond table is at the right hand, and upon it is placed 
the writing-pad. In a few minutes after the trance 
occurs, the right hand shows signs of animation and 
slowly moves toward this table for the writing, when 
a pencil is placed between the two fore-fingers and 
the writing begins. 

Mrs. Piper's normal consciousness, as the past 
evidence goes to show, knows nothing of what she 
has done or communicated in the trance. She also 
remains ignorant of the communications until they 
are published in some form, except, of course, when 
a sitter chooses to tell her something, which I need 
hardly say in my case was nothing. There is no 
mechanical apparatus whatsoever in the experi- 
ments, except the writing-pad and pencil which you 
furnish yourself. Hence there is no excuse for 
comparing the case to slate-writing and cabinet 



158 Proofs of Life After Death 

performances generally. Absolutely nothing of this 
sort is connected with the sittings and experiments. 
They are conducted in open daylight, in a room 
without any special arrangements for them, except 
the tables as indicated, and this room, in so far as 
living persons are concerned, might be any one that 
the skeptical inquirer might wish to choose in any 
locality whatsoever, and not confined to Mrs. Piper's 
home. 

In Mrs. Piper's case, in addition to the daylight 
and absence of mechanical apparatus like slates or 
cabinets, the writing is done visibly with her own 
hand, and on paper and with a pencil of your own 
furnishing. That is to say, we can actually see as 
much of the modus operandi of the "communica- 
tions" as we can see of any normal human act. 
Nothing is concealed from our view, except the 
physiological processes that are equally concealed 
from us in our own writing as well as all other 
human afTairs. The whole scientific and evidential 
importance of the results thus gets its credentials 
and value solely from the content of the "communi- 
cations," and not in any special way from the man- 
ner of obtaining them, except as detective frauds 
are excluded from the matter. I should also indi- 
cate briefly the manner of making the record. Dr. 
Hodgson sat near the table on my right where he 
could see the writing as it proceeded. This he 
copied, reading it in a low voice as an indication to 



The Psychical Researchers igg 

the trance personality that it was intelligible, or 
sometimes with a tone of interrogation and doubt 
which would be followed either by the word "Yes" 
sometimes written out, or assent by the hand, or 
by the repetition of a word or phrase not rightly 
read at first. 

Enumerating the communicators by name that 
figure in my series of sittings, there is my father, 
Robert Hyslop, who is the chief communicator 
throughout and who died on the 29th of August in 
1896. Frequent communicators were my brother 
Charles, who died a young boy at four and a half 
years in 1864, and my sister Anna, who died at three 
years of age, twelve days later. Also in several 
sittings apparently my uncle, James B. Carruthers, 
communicated or made unsuccessful attempts at 
times. He died on December 2d, 1898, from an 
accident on the railway. In the five sittings held 
for me by Dr. Hodgson while I remained in New 
York my father was the only communicator, with 
the exception that my sister Anna seemed to be 
present once. In the next eight sittings, at which I 
was present myself, my father was the chief com- 
municator; but in the course of them, in addition 
to all that have been mentioned, my mother, twice 
by name, Martha Ann Hyslop, who died in October, 
1869, my cousin, Robert H. McClellan, who died 
in 1897, and his father, my uncle, James McClellan, 
who died about the beginning of 1876, were com- 
municators. 



i6o Proofs of Life After Death 

In the series of seventeen sittings, twelve held by 
myself and five held by Dr. Hodgson for me, it will 
aid in a clear conception of the facts in the com- 
munications if we give such a statistical summary 
of them as is possible. This cannot be done in the 
same manner that facts and events of the same kind 
usually can be classified, but they can be grouped 
in a way suitable to a rough comparison, that will 
supply the relative number of true and false inci- 
dents with which we have to reckon in making up 
our conclusions in the case. 

The basis of classification that has been adopted 
rests upon the distinction between the true, the 
false, the indeterminate, and the mixed incidents. 
An incident in the classification does not mean 
merely some name or isolated fact, but may include 
a number of facts capable of being independent of 
each other in the course of events. Hence I have 
distinguished between an incident and the number 
of factors that may constitute it. 

(There were 1132 incidents and factors brought 
out according to Professor Hyslop's Statistical 
Table. Of these, 152 were true incidents, 37 were 
indeterminate, and 16 were false. Of the factors, 
717 were true, 167 indeterminate, and 43 were false. 
— Editor.) 

Many of the more important features of the 
record cannot be expressed at all in tabular account. 
They are statements which show the proper appre- 
ciation of questions, remarks, or other aspects of a 



The Psychical Researchers i6i 

situation, and also incidents of emotional tone. All 
that the figures apply to are the number of objective 
facts stated as such, chiefly, of course, concerning 
the earthly experiences of the communicator. 

(In taking up the attempts to explain the trance 
phenomena of Mrs. Piper, Prof. Hyslop says that 
the first, naturally, to come under review for all 
psychical researchers is the hypothesis of telepathy, 
(see Flournoy on telepathy, page 89) that is, a 
process between living persons only. After dealing 
with this in such a way as to show how far short it 
falls in meeting the facts of the case, how strained 
and infinitely complex the theory is when applied to 
all the circumstances of the case, he writes:) 

I assume the following : First, that the discarnate 
spirit is in a state of active secondary personality 
when communicating, possibly at times resembling 
our hypnotic condition in some of its incidents at 
least, and exhibiting various degrees of clearness 
and confusion, merging now and then into delirium, 
automatism, or complete syncope. This supposition 
explains both the triviality and the fragmentary 
character of the messages, together with the rapid 
movement of thought so evident in them. It also 
explains easily the occurrence of automatisms. 

Telepathy between the living cannot plead any 
excuse for its limitations in this way, because the 
powers that have to be assumed for it would give it 
access to any and all incidents of the sitter's memo- 
ries, important and trivial alike. Second, that Mrs. 



i62 Proofs of Life After Death 

Piper is in a state of passive secondary personality, 
a subliminal condition which reflects or expresses 
automatically the thoughts communicated to it. The 
evidence that this is her condition is almost over- 
whelming. The supposition, then, explains easily 
the limitations of the whole case, and also the fact 
that the dramatic play of personality is more con- 
sistent with the spiritistic theory than with that of 
her secondary personality. Mrs. Piper can hardly 
be in an active and a passive state of secondary 
personality at the same time. Third, that there is 
some process of communication between these two 
conditions of secondary personality, whose modus 
operandi is not yet known. 

There is a difficulty to be considered that appears 
to have some weight in respectable quarters. It is 
closely connected with the problem of mistakes and 
confusions, and is comprehended in the same gen- 
eral causes. It is usually raised by the same class 
that takes ofifence at confusion. When some alleged 
communication is presented as coming from a dis- 
carnate spirit the usual questions are: "Why can- 
not a spirit be more explicit and definite? Why 
cannot it name certain specific dates or events at 
once that will immediately identify it? Why so 
much confusion and loss of memory? Why so much 
trouble about their names? A spirit ought to be 
able to announce its name at once and to know that 
it is imperative to do this at first." To many this 



The Psychical Researchers 163 

represented disintegration of memory makes the 
whole affair appear very suspicious and creates a 
presumption for telepathy which we can easily con- 
ceive as capricious, and which experience seems to 
show is so. 

It is the tendency of certain presumably intelli- 
gent people to a priori decide what a given spirit 
ought to say to identify itself. They argue from 
what they imagine they would do in the same situa- 
tion, without really knowing what such a situation 
is. Unless the alleged spirit tells a coherent story 
and indulges in lofty sentiments in clear language or 
exhibits some superhuman flights of inspiration, 
great truths, etc., they turn up their noses and sub- 
stitute sneers for science. It is an objection that 
reflects more suspicion on the intelligence of the 
man who makes it than upon that of the alleged 
spirit. 

It is strange that an agnostic who has abandoned 
orthodox dogma on the one hand, and who has 
seen the terrible lesson in humility which the doc- 
trine of evolution has taught man in regard to his 
origin against all the poetry and mythology of the 
past, should cling to the theological assumption of 
some idyllic existence and perfection for spirits in 
case they exist at all, and this without one iota of 
evidence! 

The fact is, that scientifically or otherwise there is 
no reason to suppose the existence of spirits of any 



164 Proofs of Life After Death 

kind, much less that they represent anything much 
better than man is now. Every sane and intelligent 
man will take the evidence, good or bad, that he can 
get, and affirm or deny the existence of spirits 
before saying what they ought to do as communi- 
cators or what estate they shall possess before believ- 
ing in them. The chasm which is usually supposed 
to exist between an embodied and a disembodied 
spirit has no excuse for its existence except the 
imagination of unscientific men. After the doctrine 
of evolution it is absurd to take any cross section of 
this process and assume that the next stage of it will 
mark an immeasurable distance and degree of prog- 
ress. It is flatly against all the laws and analogies 
of nature to do this, and absolutely inexcusable in 
the minds of men who make the slightest profession 
of science. 

Evolution has destroyed the golden age of the 
past, and spiritism, with a similar lesson of humility, 
may destroy the illusory golden age of the future. 

From what we know of the influence of hypnosis 
upon the consciousness of personal identity and of 
physiological disturbances in the brain affecting the 
integrity of memory, so far from expecting any 
traces whatever of personal identity, even if the soul 
survived as an "energy," we should rather wonder 
that any intelligible message should come in the 
attempt to communicate. Both from our knowl- 
edge of physiology and from the necessity of inter- 



The Psychical Researchers' 165 

veiling obstacles between incarnate and discarnate 
existence, all the material conditions of our present 
mental states and modes of communication being 
removed, we should rather expect spirits, even when 
they retained the consciousness of personal identity 
and possessed perfectly clear thought in their own 
natural medium, only to squeak and gibber like poor 
Polly in their effort to speak to us through such 
media as must be employed. 

The amazing thing is that there should be either 
any survival at all, or any traces of it possible. Hence 
there is nothing to do but to handle without mercy 
every man who is so ignorant of the postulates of 
scientific method and of the immense difficulties 
that must of necessity be encountered in real com- 
munications from a transcendental world as to ask 
that spirits should speak the language or exhibit the 
intelligence of Plato, of Paul, or of Shakespeare. 

When I look over the whole field of the phenom- 
ena, and consider the suppositions that must be 
made to escape spiritism, vv^hich not only one aspect 
of the case, but every incidental feature of it 
strengthens, such as the dramatic interplay of differ- 
ent personalities, the personal traits of the communi- 
cator, the emotional tone that was natural to the 
same, the proper appreciation of a situation or a 
question, and the unity of consciousness displayed 
throughout, I see no reason except the suspicions 
of my neighbors for withholding assent. But when 



i66 . Proofs of Life After Death 

I am asked to admit the telepathy required to meet 
the case, the amazing feats of memory involved in 
the medium's subliminal, the staggering- amount of 
deception demanded, and the perfect play of per- 
sonality presented, as capable of explaining the phe- 
nomena without spirits, I may say, yes, if you choose 
to believe this against all scientific precedents. 

But I am not ready to accept any such appeals to 
the infinite, especially when we have only to extend 
the known laws of consciousness to account for the 
facts (by spiritism) instead of making such enormous 
suppositions for fear of losing our social respectabil- 
ity. Science is bankrupt when it has to appeal to 
the infinite. 

PROF. CHARLES RICHET t ' t t 

All of us are recalcitrant in accepting facts which 
do not seem concordant with the facts of every day. 
We are incredulous of the extraordinary; and how 
incredulous I could hardly illustrate better than by 
my own prolonged and almost invincible opposition 
to the facts called occult. 

And now, to begin with, we must get rid alto- 
gether of this word occult; — or rather we must give 
it the only sense which it ought to bear. Occult 
means unknown. Alchemy, before it became chem- 
istry, astrology, before it became astronomy, medi- 
cine, before it became bacteriology, were nothing 
more than occult sciences. Nor, indeed, would it be 



The Psychical Researchers 167 

very hard to show that the classic sciences, of which 
we are so proud, are not yet far removed from the 
occult stage. 

V\^e may know certain phenomena, and even the 
laws which govern their appearance; but we do not 
adequately understand a single one of them. To 
say of the stone which falls to earth that it obeys an 
attraction which varies directly as the mass and 
inversely as the square of the distance, is not to 
understand the stone's fall. Famihar though that 
phenomenon is, it is not a phenomenon which is 
understood in all its elements. Not one phenome- 
non, I repeat, is fully understood. All are linked 
together, and if we really understood one, we should 
understand all. 

V\'"hen I first began to occupy myself with the 
sciences called occult it was to make experiments in 
somnambulism. At that time — it was in 1873, very 
long ago! — somnambulism was still a mysterious, 
magical science; and in the account which I gave of 
my experiments I began by saying: "It needs a 
certain courage to pronounce the word somnam- 
bulism." I was right, I think, to have this courage; 
for a fev/ years later — and possibly my own efforts 
helped towards this change — somnambulism had 
taken its place among facts which no one denied. 
As you know, the hypnotic trance is now a matter of 
common knowledge; it forms a theme of ordinary 
medical instruction, and is no more a subject of 



1 68 Proofs of Life After Death 

doubt than is small-pox or cholera. Thus may an 
occult science become a classic science in twenty 
years. 

In the course of these studies I had here and there 
observed certain facts of lucidity, of premonition, of 
telepathy; but since these facts were denied and ridi- 
culed on every side, I had not pushed independence 
of mind so far as to believe them. I deliberately 
shut my eyes to phenomena which lay plain before 
me, and rather than discuss them I chose the easier 
course of denying them altogether. Or, I should 
rather say, instead of pondering on these" inexpli- 
cable facts I simply put them aside, and set them 
down to some illusion, or some error of observation. 

Nay, in my servile respect for the classic tradition 
I mocked at what v/as called spiritism; and after 
reading the astounding statements which Mr. 
Crookes had published, I allowed myself — and here 
do I publicly beg his pardon for it! — to laugh at 
them as heartily as almost everyone else was doing. 
But now I say just what my friend Ochorowicz says 
in the same matter — I beat my breast and I cry 
Pater, peccavi! How could I suppose that the 
savant (Crookes) who has discovered thallium and 
the radiometer, and foreshadowed the Rontgen rays, 
could commit gross and inexplicable blunders, and 
allow himself to be duped for years by tricks which 
a child could have exposed? 

A certain experiment in spiritism (I keep the 



The Psychical Researchers i6g 

word, although it corresponds to no theoretical idea 
at all) came to shake my disbelief. One of my 
friends discovered that he possessed the curious 
faculty of causing a table to go through certain 
movements — for him involuntary and unconscious 
— but which were nevertheless intelligent. That is 
to say, one could put questions and get answers of 
which he had no knowledge, although he remained 
fully awake, and his own personal consciousness 
seemed quite intact. Unwilling to look for any 
cause outside the causes of familiar phenomena, I 
invented as an explanation of these strange facts a 
theory which has not survived, and did not deserve 
to survive — the theory of hemi-somnambulism. 
This was in 1883. 

Several years before this date, one of my relations 
had experienced in my presence a telepathic hal- 
lucination, under circumstances of the most striking 
kind. But of this I had taken no serious thought. 
Little by little, hovv^ever, as we have gone on in the 
accumulation of facts of just the same order, this 
veridical hallucination of which I had been cog- 
nizant returned more strongly to my memory, and 
a kind of suspense and floating uncertainty took 
possession of my spirit. 

It must be remembered, too, in my excuse, that 
as a professional physiologist I moved habitually 
along a road quite other than mystical. I had been 
taught a scrupulous respect for fact, a habit of exact 



I/O Proofs of Life After Death 

and prosaic observation, controlled by rigorous tests 
— by the balance, the myograph, the chemical reac- 
tion. I began to feel myself dragged in two direc- 
tions by contrary currents. 

It would have been something if psychical experi- 
ments had been susceptible of exact measurements! 
But you know too well that this is not so. In the 
best experiments with sensitives there is always a 
caput mortmim which escapes analysis — something 
loose and approximate which fails to satisfy men 
who have taken as their motto these words of the 
Preacher which govern science: "Omnia in numero 
et pondere." 

But on the other hand the history of science 
showed me into what strange mistakes men fall by 
ignoring facts plain to see. The wisest of our fore- 
runners was blind to many a conspicuous phenome- 
non, simply because it was a phenomenon which he 
could not understand. "And may it not be thus," 
I said to myself, "with these psychical phenomena? 
The unlearned deny them; the learned exclude them 
from their text-books; but they may exist for all 
that." 

Then, as my next step, I imagined that certain 
psychological facts of lucidity, of telepathy, perhaps 
of premonition, were true; but that no occult facts 
actually affected the material universe. Our human 
intelligence, I said to myself, is perhaps endowed at 
certain moments with extraordinary powers, with 



The Psychical Researchers 171 

faculties which remain latent in the mass of men; 
but that is all; it cannot act directly upon matter. 

This novel power of insight — I thought — will in 
no wise alter our fundamental conception of the 
world; the only truth in spiritism is just this lucid- 
ity. Nay, the lucidity itself, although it seems pos- 
sible, even probable, is not as yet established by 
vigprous proof. 

I was at this point when M. Aksakofif came to see 
me in Paris, and reproached me for not interesting 
myself more keenly in experiments with mediums. 
"Well," said I, "if I were sure that a single true 
medium existed, I would willingly go to the end of 
the world to see him!" 

Two years later, M. Aksakofif wrote to me: "You 
need not come to the end of the world; if you come 
to Milan it will do." Milan! that was not far to go to 
find the key of the mystery. 

I took part, then, in those celebrated Milan seances 
with Eusapia Paladino; and while those seances were 
going on I was fully convinced of the reality of the 
phenomena. Numerous precautions were taken; 
the incessant repetition of tests and experiments sat- 
isfied the most scrupulous mind. When I left Milan 
I was fully convinced that all was true — as also were 
the eminent savants who took part in the sittings — 
Brofiferio, Gerosa, Finzi, and the great astronomer 
Schiaparelli. 

But at this point a remarkable psychological phe- 



172 Proofs of Life After Death 

nomenon made itself felt — a phenomenon deserving 
of attention. Observe that we are now dealing with 
observed facts which are nevertheless absurd ; which 
are in contradiction with facts of daily observa- 
tion; which are denied not by science only, but 
by the whole of humanity — facts which are rapid 
and fugitive, which take place in semi-darkness, and 
almost by surprise; with no proof except the testi- 
mony of our senses, which we know to be often 
fallible. After we have witnessed such facts, every- 
thing concurs to make us doubt them. 

Now, at the moment when these facts take place 
they seem to us certain, and we are willing to pro- 
claim them openly, but when we return to ourselves, 
when we feel the irresistible influence of our envi- 
ronment, when our friends all laugh at our credulity 
— then we are almost disarmed, and Vv^e begin to 
doubt. May it not all have been an illusion? May 
I not have been grossly deceived? I saw, no doubt; 
but did I see aright? who can prove to me that I 
did so? 

And then, as the moment of the experiment 
becomes more remote, that experiment which once 
seemed so conclusive gets to seem more and more 
imcertain, and we end by letting ourselves be per- 
suaded that we have been the victims of a trick. 

Our own conviction — the conviction of men who 
have seen — ought properly to convince other peo- 
ple — but, by a curious inversion of roles, it is their 



TJie Psychical Researchers 173 

conviction, the negative conviction of people who 
have not seen, and who ought not, one would think, 
to speak on the matter, which weakens and ulti- 
mately destroys our own conviction. This phenom- 
enon occurred in my case with such intensity that 
scarcely a fortnight after witnessing the experiments 
with Eusapia Paladino, at Milan, I had persuaded 
mj'^self that there had been nothing beyond fraud 
and illusion. 

Nevertheless, I wished to repeat those experi- 
ments; and at Rome, in company with an eminent 
savant, Schrenk-Notzing, and a celebrated painter, 
H. Siemiradzki, I again made experiments of a most 
decisive kind. But a second time I found that doubt 
seized me after a short interval. I was not yet sat- 
isfied; and I invited Eusapia to my house for three 
m.onths. Alone with her and my excellent friend, 
Ochorowicz, a man of penetrating perspicacity, I 
renewed the experiments in the best possible condi- 
tions of solitude and quiet reflection. We thus 
acquired a positive proof of the reality of the facts 
announced at Milan. 

Other friends belonging to the Society for Psy- 
chical Research, Messrs. Myers and Lodge especi- 
ally, came and shared our conviction. It has since 
undergone serious oscillation — partly from that psy- 
chological process of recurrence to habitual modes 
of thought already described, partly through the 
fault of the medium herself; but my own fourth 



174 Proofs of Life After Death 

series of experiments in Paris brought with it for 
me, as also for Mr. Myers, a conviction of reality 
even stronger than before. Nevertheless, before dis- 
cussing experiments in detail, a yet further series 
should be held under the most careful conditions. 

In the meantime it is quite possible that my 
friends and I may lose that vigour of conviction 
which recent experience gives. We may return to 
that curious state of mind of which I have already 
spoken. 

The real world which surrounds us, with its preju- 
dices, well or ill-founded, its scheme of habitual 
opinions, holds us in so strong a grasp that we can 
scarcely free ourselves completely. Certainty does 
not follow on demonstration, it follows on habit. 

But the duty of the savant is precisely not to 
allow him.self to follow the routine of unreasoning 
respect for what Bacon termed idols. His mission 
is to seek truth, without caring for the opinion of the 
vulgar. What should he care for popularity? Sar- 
casm or indifference ought to leave him equally 
unmoved. 

If we have been credulous, our credulity has not 
been spontaneous and easy; vv^e have made, as you 
have seen, an obstinate defense. It took me twenty 
years of patient researches to arrive at my present 
conviction. Nay — to make one last confession — I 
am not even yet absolutely and irremediably con- 
vinced! In spite of the astounding phenomena 



i&st^ 



The Psychical Researchers 175 

which I have witnessed during my sixty experi- 
ments with Eusapia, I have still a trace of doubt; 
doubt which is weak, indeed, to-day, but which may 
perchance be stronger to-morrow. Yet such doubts, 
if they come, will not be due so much to any defect 
in the actual experiment, as to the inexorable 
strength of prepossession which holds me back from 
adopting a conlcusion which contravenes the habit- 
ual and almost unanimous opinion of mankind. 

DR. HAMILTON A. BEESON t t t 

What do I consider the strongest evidence of the 
existence of the human soul in personal identity 
after death? This is indeed a "mighty question," 
but I must confess that I have no sure and satisfying 
knowledge affirmative of that so much desired 
existence. 

I have learned much in the study of the reports of 
the Society for Psychical Research on the phenom- 
ena of trance and other supranormal mental and 
physical conditions, such as those of D. D. Home, 
Stainton Moses and Mrs. Piper. Especially in the 
case of the latter; if one can accept the spiritistic 
theory of her phenomena the evidence ought to be 
satisfactory. 

But there are so many features of weakness and 
waning rather than of increasing strength of char- 
acter in the personalities manifested, and so much 
seems to depend upon the physical and mental con- 
dition of the "machine" for the manifestation of 



176 Proofs of Life After Death 

these alleged spirits, that one is held in a state of 
constant doubt. At least such is my own case. 
I cannot yet accept them as sure and satisfactory. 

There is a common-sense argument, or reason in 
favor of a future life (heaven) with personal iden- 
tity maintained in perpetuity that I accept as satis- 
fying, viz., that if it were not so the universal desire 
would not have been implanted in the heart and 
mind of man. In the Caucasic race, especially, this 
desire is undoubtedly virtually unanimous. The 
Creative Power would do violence to justice and 
truth towards the created if this great, continuous, 
composite desire and prayer of the generations of 
peoples should be ignored. The known quantity of 
the great Equation is the Universal and Continu- 
ous Desire — the x, y and z; the unknown are the 
Spiritual World, the Personal Identity therein, and 
Eternity. 

DR. PAUL GIBIER t t t 

The strongest illusion is that which we call reality. 

Under the cover of scientific conservatism, it is 
the general tendency of men who have attained a 
certain position in universities and scientific socie- 
ties to bar the way to any matters too strikingly 
diverging — according to their views — from the 
ordinary trend of observation. This is especially 
true of psychic phenomena. Although the latter 
may safely be placed at the head of the most inter- 
esting subjects soliciting man's attention, yet they 



The Psychical Researchers 177 

do not appear to have attained the required respect- 
ability for their introduction to the scientific socie- 
ties and journals where the gentlemen alluded to 
exercise their pontifical functions. * * * 

It is my opinion that this is a matter with which, 
through force of circumstances, everyone v>^ill be 
familiar before the twentieth century attains its 
period of advanced youth. A great many scien- 
tists, however, are cognizant of the question; the 
clergy becomes more interested in it, and many have 
held dissertations on it from the pulpit. Now it 
must be stated that psychical matters are of such a 
nature that they may be compared to a set of pow- 
erful cog-wheels in motion; once the fingers are 
caught in the teeth, the whole body is drawn in. 
The movement cannot be stopped at present, and 
scientists, clergymen, and philosophers of all schools 
will soon be bound to come, whether they will or 
not, to an understanding with regard to psychic 
phenomena. It is true that the question would be 
advanced some twenty-five years or more if it had 
not been for the numerous frauds which have kept 
many experimenters from investigating and pub- 
lishing the results of their researches. But it 
behooves us to sift the grain from the chaff — the 
genuine from the spurious, in order to bring truth 
from its hidden recesses. 

Philosophers of all ages have observed, that no 
sooner do men discuss subjects beyond their limita- 



178 Proofs of Life After Death 

tions than each one judges them according to the 
bent or tendency of his mind, or as we say, with the 
inclination of his sentiment; on the other hand, they 
agree upon such subjects as fall under their senses. 
But science has advanced; marvelous discoveries 
have been made. The certainty of modern experi- 
mental science, with the aid of sensitive and accurate 
instruments now permits us to undertake studies 
and make investigations which our forefathers, 
excepting in a few rare initiatory cases, could 
scarcely approach. >!= * * 

Man endeavors to clear two mysteries: The mys- 
tery of the World and the mystery that he is to him- 
self. He gazes at the celestial vault and the stars, 
he anxiously scans the universe, where he, a mere 
atom, is lost. 

A first fact impresses him: Something exists; 
this he calls Matter. 

A second fact attracts him nearly as soon: This 
matter moves. * * * ^n examination tells him 
that the movement, its consequences and transfor- 
mations, are manifestations of Energy. * * * 
The existence of Energy may explain to him the 
origin of Matter, but what of Energy? Whence 
does it arise? What becomes of it? 

In his own person he sees a body, borrowed from 
surrounding matter. Then he finds still within 
himself, Energy, whose effects he sees in the objects 
that surround him. Through what medium has he 



The Psychical Researchers 179 

understood these things? Is it through his matter 
or his energy, or through both? But, in either case, 
it presupposes matter and energy to be intelligent. 

When he sees the effect of death and the inertia of 
a dead body, he deducts therefrom the knowledge 
that matter in itself is unintelligent. 

And when he analyzes within himself the varieties 
of energy, and notes that their only office is to per- 
form the functions of his body, and to execute the 
orders of his conscious and intelligent will, he is 
then made aware that he has attained that which he 
has striven for; he understands by means of some- 
thing which is neither his matter nor his energy, 
and to this something he gives the name of Intelli- 
gence. At last he has discovered the third element 
of the universe. He has seen and understood that, *" 
co-existent with Matter and Energy, there is Intel- 
ligence. 

Neither materialists nor spiritualists have been 
able to convince each other, and always for the same 
reason: The world agrees only upon those things 
which fall, and remain, so to say, under the obser- 
vations of the senses. 

How, then, will philosophers some day agree 
upon this point — the first question among all — the 
existence of the soul? Our answer goes direct to 
the point: 

We can have material proofs of the existence of 
the soul. 



i8o Proofs of Life After Death 

The truth is this: Intelligence exists outside of 
matter — matter as modern science commonly con- 
ceives it — and without heeding the theory of "mod- 
ern Spiritualism," I ajffirm that all phenomena 
claimed by Spiritualism are true, which, however, 
does not mean that they cannot, in a measure, be 
simulated by fraud and trickery. 

It will remain to the shame of a number of our 
scientists that have so persistently refused to look 
into facts of such importance, especially as these 
facts have challenged observation for over half a 
century. 

It is within the realm of phenomenal psychology 
that we are to search for the principal basis of 
Future Science. It is this that is to teach to man 
his true nature, at the same time that it will bring 
him in close relationship with the intimate knowl- 
edge of things. 

The objective phenomena of external psychology 
may be studied by means of subjects, gifted with 
special and usually passive faculties, known in mod- 
ern language under the name of mediums. The 
name is given to a certain category of individuals 
who are supposed to be able to act as intermedi- 
aries — as mediums — between the living and the 
dead. Indeed, it is perfectly true that some indi- 
viduals, predisposed through constitution, and devel- 
oped through training, may serve as intermediaries 
between the living and the commonly invisible intel- 



The Psychical Researchers i8i 

ligences, which sometimes pretend, though not 
always, that they are the spirits of individuals who 
formerly lived the same life as ours. 

To the question, how is it that these things are 
not better known and better studied, we reply: Sci- 
entists have studied and known them for a long 
time, but fear of having their scientific reputations 
besmirched and honor questioned, has made them 
trepid of exposing their theories and experiments to 
the criticism of the world. And so, for his own 
benefit solely, the scientist, either alone or with a 
few friends, has studied these great and all-import- 
ant questions, and kept for himself the results of his 
investigations. 

In a great majority of cases men hope, or rather 
desire, to live after death, under one form or 
another, and notwithstanding these Instinctive 
desires for immortality, the most of us show our- 
selves rebellious when it comes to the admission and 
study of these phenomena which are best adapted to 
show the possibility, I dare not say of this immor- 
tality, but of at least a survival of the consciousness 
of man after death. A rather curious, and at the 
same time contradictory fact is, that this same 
repugnance is found among a fair number of spirit- 
ualist philosophers. It Is no less a settled fact, for 
those scientists who have observed the psychic phe- 
nomena determined by the presence of mediums and 
fakirs (the Hindoo mediums) that they constitute 



1 82 " Proofs of Life After Death 

the most certain proof we have of the existence of 
the spirit, or intelligence, as a conscious principle 
persisting after death. * * * 

Thus, does man find himself after death, in what 
we call the after-life, in a state which doubtless is 
normal; the one in which we now live being transi- 
tory, although its purpose be a useful one. Experi- 
ments which serve to prove this great truth are 
unending. In the work entitled "Phantasms of the 
Living'V a book written by distinguished scientists, 
we find innumerable accounts of those who at the 
time of death have appeared to friends and relatives 
at a distance. It is impossible to believe that these 
events have to do with a series of accidental occur- 
rences. 

Science is higher than the scope of vision of any 
man in particular, and we hold the profoundest con- 
viction that humanity will feel an increase of thank- 
fulness towards her the day on which, speaking with 
full knowledge, she shall be able to say to man: 

"Dying Hermes was right, when with eyes already 
dazed by the sight of an eternity whose veil was fall- 
ing before him, he spoke these words: 'Until this 
day I have lived an exile from my true country; I 
am returning to it; do not weep for me; I am about 
to reach the celestial dwelling where each one of you 
will go in turn; there is God. This life is but a 
death.' " 



1 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. 



The Psychical Researchers 183 

DR. O. O. BURGESS t t t 

Just an introductory word as to conditions under 
which the following conclusions have been reached. 

The writer has been engaged in the practice of 
medicine since his graduation in 1857, An early 
effect of his professional studies and experience was 
to give him a decided leaning toward materialism — 
somewhat restrained by the influence of moderate 
religious training in childhood. What seemed requi- 
site in his mind, after his doubt began, was a cer- 
tainty of the "future life" which should outweigh 
the apparent physiological certainty that the exist- 
ence of mind (soul) is wholly dependent upon brain 
function. 

Human immortality, endless continuity of per- 
sonal identity, stands, in my judgment, as scientific 
fact, and not as a matter of belief, except as to the 
truth of what has seemed to demonstrate it as a fact. 

First among such demonstrations, I place the res- 
urrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. 

Second, the demonstrative proofs furnished by 
numberless well authenticated acts and apparitions 
of ghosts, or living spirits of the dead. 

Third, the logical deduction that personal identity 
which shall have survived "death" for however short 
a time, is absolutely imperishable. 

These conclusions require some explanation to 
give them, apparent raison d'etre. It is only within 
the last two or three years that any one of them has 



i84' Proofs of Life After Death 

been definitely reached in my mind, and the first 
has held no place whatever among them until very 
recently. This came about through a radical 
change in my views of miracle — namely, a change 
from alternating disbelief and blind credulity to a 
theory of scientific possibility. 

In a communication of this kind I can do no more 
than to outline my present position. To begin with, 
let us define Miracle as an arbitrary intensification 
of natural operations by unknown means, to pro- 
duce extraordinary results. 

This definition excludes the irreflective notion of 
operations which are supernatural (impossible), 
while it includes a conception of the arbitrary, and, 
therefore, intelligent, employment of intensified nat- 
ural processes to accomplish definite results which 
shall be wonderful, miraculous in character. Such 
action would of necessity involve the controlling 
power of knowledge which, at least for the time 
being, was superhuman. 

To converse with a friend fifty miles away in rec- 
ognized tones of voice would have been miracle 
less than fifty years ago. 

I. Turning now to a consideration of the first of 
these demonstrations, it must be admitted that, 
without a rapid, and final, disintegration of the dead 
body of Jesus, the miracle of the ascension was 
simply impossible. 

It is related by eye-witnesses that the body was 



The Psychical Researchers 185 

found to have mysteriously disappeared, while the 
clothing remained behind in the tomb; that the liv- 
ing Jesus afterwards reappeared among His disciples 
and finally ascended to heaven in, apparently, His 
natural body. Now the testimony of these v/it- 
nesses must be regarded as unimpeachable because, 
if for no other reason, the essential features of such 
striking, unheard-of, awe-inspiring events must have 
impressed themselves too profoundly to admit of 
radical error in observation or description, or in the 
course of transmission, whether by tradition or rec- 
ord. This means that the witnesses actually saw the 
ascension take place; therefore rapid disintegration, 
which they did not see, also took place. Otherwise 
the living Jesus would have been carried upward by 
unknown forces only to meet a second death by 
congelation or a return fall to earth. 

The well known ways in which the natural pro- 
cesses of disintegration may be expedited to a most 
wonderful degree brings it quite within the range of 
scientific possibility that, under the control of what 
was then (and would be now) inspired or super- 
human knowledge, such disintegration did occur 
either in the tomb, as seems most probable, or else 
at the time of the ascension. Be this as it may, we 
have here presented to us a singularly effective and 
probably intentional demonstration of a continued 
existence of the personality of a human soul after 
•death of the body. For, if what reappeared was but 



1 86 Proofs of Life After Death 

a ghostly simulacrum of the natural body, so per- 
fect as to deceive the senses of the onlookers, it was 
none the less within the range of possible occur- 
rences. 

2. Demonstrations referred to under the second 
head need only to be touched upon to awaken 
attention to their great importance. 

You are well acquainted, of course, with the con- 
clusions of the Society for Psychical Research, 
carefully and judiciously drawn from the vast accu- 
mulation of evidence which has come before it, to 
the effect that ghosts, or living spirits of the dead, 
do actually reappear; and that, in the present state 
of our knowledge, some of the spiritualistic phe- 
nomena, so called, must be accepted as genuine 
demonstrations of human immortality in all the 
fullness of personal identity. 

These conclusions have been reached only after 
use of the most critical and exhaustive methods of 
investigation by men who stand among the fore- 
most in the world with respect to all the qualifica- 
tions which should best fit them for such a difficult 
and responsible task. It is a matter of much less 
importance, except to the writer himself, but he has 
also reached a similar conclusion as to spiritistic 
phenomena, after something more than two years of 
systematic investigation, undertaken with skeptical 
prejudice and extended to 191 carefully and fully 
recorded interviews with the only medium whose 



The Psychical Researchers 187 

methods and messages (slatewritten) inspired him 
with confidence enough to carry him back — a sec- 
ond time — ^with the single exception of one whom 
he saw four times. 

Demonstrations of the kind we have been dis- 
cussing all appeal to the senses for recognition. Yet 
it by no means follows that a ghost must possess a 
form so substantial that it may impress itself upon 
the organs of sense. On the contrary, it falls within 
the experience of any of us to know that the brain 
(mind) sometimes sees, hears, or feels, things which 
in reality have no substantial existence whatever. 
The idea has been created without sensual interven- 
tion, but the mind cognizes it only by comparison 
with previous physical experiences. 

Herein is involved the reality of existence of spir- 
itual form without any relation to substance, which 
has been so ably elucidated by Dr. Paul Cams. 

Death is essential to the life of substance, and 
every form of substance must inevitably perish in 
metamorphosis. 

But the soul is not a form of substance. Ele- 
ments, or rather individual features which go to 
make up its identity may be handed on to an 
infinitude of others, as is seen in the diffusion of 
knowledge, and yet remain forever in their original 
relations to individual spiritual form. 

Form without substance is not only necessary to 
any tenable conception of immortality of the human 



i88 Proofs of Life After Death 

soul, but also to a conception of that ultimate some- 
thing in which such a soul is individuated at the 
beginning of its physical career. Let us term that 
something the Allness of form without substance, 
which with its never-ending life of creational activ- 
ity, forms the individual human soul as a permanent 
feature of its own identity, to expand with its own 
expansion forever and ever. 

For this Allness of everything that is knows no 
finality of completion. 

And a shorter name for it is God. 

LILIAN WHITING t t t 

All study of the spiritual nature of man is inex- 
tricably united with the study of the universe. The 
powers and possibilities of the soul are conditioned 
by its successive environments, which become finer 
and more ethereal in proportion to the development 
of spiritual energy, which is life. Science, that is 
continually penetrating the laws of the universe and 
revealing its mysteries, offers an increasing illumina- 
tion on the nature and destiny of human life. 

There is no limit to the quest of knowledge; the 
far horizon line of yesterday is in the middle dis- 
tance of to-day. The telescope reached its limits of 
discovery, and, behold, the spectroscope was 
invented as an attachment which so extended the 
power of the telescope as to enable the observer to 
determine whether a heavenly body was moving 
toward, or away from, our solar system, and to even 



The Psychical Researchers 189 

approximate to its rate of motion. The spectroscope 
has even revealed, under the scientific skill of Pro- 
fessor Keeler of Lick observatory, that the rings of 
Saturn are rotating at different rates. 

Professor Dolbear's discoveries regarding the 
nature and possibilities of the ether are recognized 
as those of the highest authority in this special line. 
Now, it is very interesting to trace the analogy 
between these — which we must accept as scientific 
facts — and the theories which present themselves in 
psychic research. There is a line of correspondences 
which is presumptive evidence. Kor instance: Psy- 
chic research comes to accept the belief that those 
in the unseen world move with a swiftness that is 
almost instantaneous. 

Now, Professor Dolbear discovers and announces 
that in the ether there is no friction and conse- 
quently that a body in the ether (not being 
impeded by friction) moves faster than light, whose 
velocity, as we know, is that of i86,ooo,p0^ miles a 
second. 

"The proof of this," says Professor Dolbear, "is 
that the movements of the planets would be differ- 
ent from what they are observed to be if gravltative 
action was less than that figure. And the move- 
ments of double and triple stars show that gravita- 
tion controls them as it does the moon and planets. 
Such a velocity is not comparable with any velocity 
exhibited by any kind of matter with which we are 



190 Proofs of Life After Death 

acquainted. Now, if gravitation in the ether has a 
velocity more than a million times greater than that 
of light, does not this suggest the scientific explana- 
tion of the swift movement of the inhabitants of the 
ethereal world?" 

Professor Dolbear ofifers these proofs supporting 
the theory of this velocity in the ether. "Shooting 
stars," he says, "come into our atmosphere with a 
velocity of about twenty-five miles a second. Some 
comets have moved about the sun with a velocity 
of nearly 400 miles a second, yet have not had their 
speed reduced by friction as they would have had if 
the medium they moved in was like a gas, even if it 
were very rare. 

"It is concluded, therefore, that the ether is fric- 
tionless, and, as light comes to us from such distant 
bodies, that the ether must fill all the space within 
the visible universe, and that it cannot be made up 
of particles like ordinary matter. Phenomena would 
be entirely different from what they are observed to 
be were the ether otherwise constituted." 

"Attempt has been made with the spectroscope," 
says Professor Dolbear, "to discover whether or not 
the earth, in its astronomic movements of rotation 
on its axis and revolution about the sun, makes any 
disturbance in the ether — ^whether it drags the ether 
with it, as a moving railroad train drags the air, or 
not; but all the evidence so far seems to show that 
the ether is not disturbed in the slightest degree. 



The Psychical Researchers 191 

It appears as if the earth moved through it as a 
coarse mesh sieve will go through water, not dis- 
placing it in any appreciable degree." 

This fact suggests to us, by analogy, the relation 
between the physical and the ethereal worlds. If 
the earth moves through the ether, not displacing it 
in any appreciable degree, is it not conclusive that 
all the phenomena of our physical life are moving 
among the phenomena of ethereal life — not displac- 
ing or interfering with it, and that thus all about us 
is this finer universe unperceived except where some 
development of the spiritual powers perceives it, by 
means of that finer sight and hearing of the psychic 
senses? 

The discovery by Rontgen of the X rays; Mar- 
coni's discovery of the possibility of wireless teleg- 
raphy; Tesla's discovery of atmospheric currents — 
all these constitute a group of new insights into 
nature which are of the utmost importance — not 
only in revealing potent resources hitherto undis- 
cerned, but as indicative of the progress of humanity 
in conquering new territory in the unseen. 

What is the nature of the spiritual world? we are 
always questioning; and the answer seems to be 
that it is a world corresponding to this, only of 
higher potencies. All the present life of humanity 
is twofold, and is lived partly in both worlds — the 
seen and the unseen. 

Telepathy, that is now scientifically recognized 



192 Proofs of Life After Death 

as a mode of communication as real as is telegraphy, 
is a method of the unseen universe. Wireless teleg- 
graphy belongs to that realm. Just as rapidly as 
the power of the spiritual man develops and 
demands methods of life pertaining to the spiritual 
world, these methods are evolved. It is a part of the 
divine inheritance of humanity. "Natural things 
and spiritual," — these are interrelated in a manner 
that nothing can separate. But when the recogni- 
tion of this becomes a conscious and intelligent one, 
then all the basis of action is enlarged and ennobled, 
and life has a new center. 

To come into a clear comprehension of these laws 
of life, of the manner in which man is an inhabitant 
of two worlds and has to do with the realm of causes 
as well as with the realm of results, is to enter on a 
more intelligent conception of moral responsibility 
and spiritual potentialities. 

Theology has invested death with a dark mystery. 
There is still a nebulous impression prevailing that 
death is a sleep, and that sometime and somehow a 
"last trump" shall sound, and some incomprehens- 
ible miracle occur to the incomprehensible beings 
into which we shall all have become transformed. 
Or, in a somewhat higher light, though little less 
remote from demonstrated truth, there is a vague 
belief that those who die enter on a conscious life, 
somehow and somewhere; that "the soul" lives in 
some way undreamed of and totally incomprehens- 



A 



The Psychical Researchers 193 

ible to us here; but that this life is on a plane of 
consciousness so entirely removed from our own 
that the separation is utterly complete, and that 
until we, too, pass through the change called death, 
the removal is absolute, and the mystery of the life 
beyond insoluble. 

"There is a natural body and there is a spiritual 
body." Here is the basis of the true explanation. 
This spiritual body is the real, the permanent being. 
We are all, here and now, spiritual beings in the 
spiritual body, and in touch with spiritual forces. 
But — this spiritual body is temporarily clothed 
with a physical covering, in order that the individual 
may temporarily enter into relations with the phys- 
ical world. 

We need to transpose our standard. The real 
world, the real life, is the spiritual; the temporal 
world, the temporal life, is the physical. We are 
here to learn to live; but the living itself comes on 
the higher plane. This higher plane is one with 
which we are in touch just in proportion to our own 
development of spiritual energy. 

The law of evolution is as constant on all planes 
as are the laws of gravitation and attraction that 
hold the stars in their courses. The change of form 
produces no violent or mysterious alteration. The 
man who died last night is the same in all essentials 
to-day that he was yesterday, except that he has 
withdrawn from the visible form. 



194 Proofs of Life After Death 

In a recent volume entitled "The Spiritual Sig- 
nificance," it has been my privilege to record Pro- 
fessor Dolbear's discoveries in the ether and to trace 
the extraordinary range of spiritual correspond- 
ences. One remarkable test of psychic communica- 
tion, stated by Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, came to 
me in time to be embodied there; but recently there 
is another which has never been published. 

On Nov. 27 I had a seance with Mrs. Piper. Kate 
Field was writing, and finally I inquired if she could 
call Dr. Livermore, that he might send a message 
by me to Mrs. Livermore. He came and messages 
were given that seemed perfectly natural, but were 
not evidential at all, so I asked him for a test. 

"Will you," I said, "tell me something known 
only to Mrs. Livermore and yourself that will be a 
test to her that it is her husband who speaks?" He 
replied: "Ask her if she remembers the Browning I 
gave her before I came here?" 

Now, I confess that, whatever my convictions 
regarding the possibilities of communication 
between the seen and the unseen, this did not 
impress me. There are such multifold editions of 
the Brownings, of both the husband and the wife, 
and book-loving people like the Livermores would 
be apt to have a great many of these. So it ran on 
some days before I even wrote of this to Mrs. Liver- 
more, as I was wholly disappointed in the alleged 



The Psychical Researchers 195 

test offered. But when I did write it to her I 
received the following reply: 

"MELROSE, Dec. 11, 1900.— You say that Mr. 
Livermore asked me, through Mrs. Piper, 'if I 
remembered the Browning he gave me?' Two days 
after our marriage, that is on May 8, 1845, ^e gave 
me two volumes of Mrs. Browning's poems, 
entitled, *A Drama of Exile, and Other Poems/ 
This is not a mere matter of memory. I have copied 
the date from the fly-leaf of the volumes where my 
name is written. For I own the books, which are 
much worn by reading, and so marked by my hus- 
band and myself, as we read, with marginal notes, 
etc., that I could not loan them to any one. Robert 
Browning had no recognition in this country at that 
time. 

"The 'Drama of Exile,' by Mrs. Brovv^ning, was 
the only Browning Mr. Livermore ever gave me, 
and the only Browning he ever read. He tried to 
read Robert Browning, but found him too obscure. 
I regard this as a good test. You need to know it 
all. You see we were young, just married, and poor. 
We could only muster $800 in money between us, 
and his salary was but $600. I earned $150 or $200 
more, by teaching special classes at our rooms, and 
by writing stories, and little books for children. We 
v/anted to go to housekeeping immediately, to have 
a home of our own, a pretty one, but simple, and 
had agreed to economize in all ways, and especially 
not to buy new books, except such as were abso- 
lutely necessary in his profession. And yet in 
two days he came home with an armful for me, two 
of which were Mrs. Browning's poems, and was as 
gleeful over it as a boy. 

"I kept a sort of watch over him after that, and 
he did not buy m.ore books immediately. He would 



ig6 Proofs of Life After Death 

say: *It is four weeks, or six, or more,' as it might 
be, 'since I brought home Mrs. Browning's poems; 
can't we afford another new book now?' You see, 
there was occasion for his remembering Mrs. 
Browning's poems, and I feel confident that was the 
book referred to. 

"MAEY A. LIVEEMOEE." 

ELLEN RICE ROBBINS t t t 

I believe most earnestly in the continued exist- 
ence of the individual personality after death. To 
my satisfaction, I know it, and I also believe the 
time is not far distant when through the maze and 
rubbish of charlatanism and fraud, the flashes and 
gleams that reach us from the unknown world will 
brighten into the light of the spirit world. Spiritu- 
alism, as usually practiced to-day by professional 
micdiums, is the most cruel fraud of the ages. It 
feeds on the bleeding hearts of the bereft; and per- 
verts the very facts that will some day solve the 
awful problem. 

The only definite evidence that I have personally 
is the look from a loved one's eyes — just as he left 
his body. His eyes had been set and half-closed 
for hours, but instantly after the last breath, he 
turned them to where I had just moved, with the 
brightest — lovingest — appealing look, which lasted 
for as much as six seconds. All in the room noticed 
it and were awed. I exclaimed: "Thank God, he 
told me so plainly that he had entered another and a 
brighter life!" 



The Psychical Researchers 197 

Whittier's "Eternal Goodness"^ will explain to 
you my belief, and what I believe beyond the shadow 
of a doubt — a faith that known and felt, is worth all 
the sorrows of life. Punishment after death, which 
was drilled into my childish mind from infancy, out- 
raged my sense of justice and sympathy from the 
beginning. That such a horrible belief ever found 
utterance in a world of human beings is well nigh 
incredible. It is going fast and God speed the day 
when no minister or priest will be inhuman enough 
to utter it. 

1 And so beside the Silent Sea 
I wait the muffled oar, 
No harm from Him can come to me 
On ocean or on shore. 

I know not where His islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care. 



Czossing the Bar. 



Sunset and evening star, 

And one clear call for me! 
And there may he no moaning of the bar. 

When I set out to sea. 
But such a tide as moving seems asleep. 

Too full for sound and foam. 
When that which draws from out the boundless deep 

Turns home again. 

Twilight and evening bell. 

And after that the dark! 
And may there he no sadness of farewell. 

When I embark; 
For though from out our bourne of time and place 

The Hood may hear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 

When I have crost the bar. 

— Tennyson. 



(198) 



Pari in 



Tl^e Philosopliers 



(199) 



"Philosophy can bake no bread; but she can procure 
for us God, Freedom and Immortality." 

Novalis. {Fredrick Von Hardenberg.) 



"What can frighten you? If the suns come down, 

the moons crumble into dust, systems after systems are 

hurled into annihilation, zvhat is that to you? Stand 

as a rock, you are indestructible." 

— Vivekananda. 



"The soul cannot fully interpret the meaning of the 
inner voices that whisper their immortal messages until 
it hath questioned earth's greatest spirits as to their 
thoughts and hopes of the life beyond death." 

— Newell Dwight Hillis. 



(200) 



PHILOSOPHY. 

All men are philosophers. 

The fact that — I think, is evidence that I exist. 
These words and this idea form the basis of philoso- 
phy. "Cogifo, ergo sum," Descartes announced in 
memorable words, as his starting point in the quest 
of knowledge. From here the mind has a thousand 
pathways to traverse; and from it man reaches, over 
various routes or methods of reasoning, called 
induction, deduction, or common sense, a concep- 
tion of things — he reaches a belief, which belief 
becomes a theory or an hypothesis. Here philoso- 
phy broadens out and the theory or hypothesis 
becomes a system, a plan by which effects are 
explained. 

Philosophy has for its basis, facts; to harmonize 
these facts and show them in their right relations 
is its true aim. It concerns itself at the present time 
however, chiefly with sociology, morals, metaphys- 
ics, and the human mind generally. The commonly 
accepted distinction between it and science is, that 
philosophy is reasoned truth and the latter, science, 
is demonstrated truth. 

Philosophy is the first and simplest way of learn- 
ing things; the truth of the things learned resting 

(201) 



202 Proofs of Life After Death 

invariably upon a clear and immistaken understand- 
ing of the premise or thing from which we start. 
Our conception of the application of philosophy for 
the purpose of extending knowledge might be illus- 
trated by the following example: 

The branches of a maple tree are whipped vigor- 
ously by a gust of autumn wind. Flying ofif on the 
bosom of the breeze, there finally alights in the soft 
ground at our feet a little winged thing. We pick 
it up and examine it. It seems to be formed for 
the purpose of being carried by the wind. It 
requires the action of a disturbed atmosphere to 
pull it from the branch where it hung; and the same 
wind that tears it off carries it away. Now why 
should it be carried away? Why the wing? Why 
the wind? Science would teach us by demonstra- 
tion that the seed could not live at the base of the 
tree, because the ground is occupied by the roots 
of the mother tree and shaded from the sun by her 
leaves. Therefore, in order to live and become a 
tree this maple seed must find soil where the rain 
and sunshine can reach it; and hence the seed devel- 
ops the wing. 

Philosophy would say, there is intelligence here; 
either in the seed or the wind. Why? Because the 
seed grows with a wing ; it holds on to the tree until 
a breeze comes along that is sufficiently strong to 
pull it off and carry it away. The intelligence must 
be in the seed, because there are other breezes than 



Philosophy 203 

the one that pulls it off, and the seed does not let 
go until it is ripe. So the philosopher, reasoning 
from analogy, would find intelligence; he would find 
in the case of this little seed an expression of 
thought and thought quite independent of a brain. 
It would seem to him to be thought, because had 
he been the seed, he could have acted, intelligently, 
only as the seed acted. 

Philosophy, then, asks a question that science is 
at present unable to answer; and through the exer- 
cise of reason suggests what the answer is, or may 
be. It advances from cause to effect, or from effect 
to cause. Having an effect in hand it judges from 
this what the cause should be, or having the cause it 
judges what the effect should be. 



Cato*s Soliloquy. 

B^ Addison. 

It must he so; — Plato, thou reason'' st well, 

Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire. 

This longing after immortality? 

Or whence this secret dread and inward horror 

Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 

Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 

— T'is the Divinity that stirs within us, 

'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 

And intimates Eternity to man. 

Eternity! — thou pleasing — dreadful thought! 

Through what variety of untried being — 

Through what new scenes and changes must we passt 

The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me; 

But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. | 

Here will I hold: — If there's a Poicer above us 

{And that there is all Nature cries aloud 

Through all her loorks), he must delight in Virtue; 

And that which he delights in must be happy: 1 

But — when? — or ivhere? — This world was made for Caesar. 

I'm weary of conjectures: This must end them. 

(Laying his hand upon his sword.) \ 

Thus am I doubly armed; my death and life, I 

My bane and antidote are both before me. 
This in, a moment brings me to an end. 
But this informs me I shall never die. 
The soul, secured in her existence, smiles 
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. 
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years. 
But thou Shalt flourish in immortal youth. 
Unhurt amid the war of elements, 
The wreck of matter, and the crush of ivorlds. 



(204) 



The Philosoptiers. 

REV. R. HEBER NEWTON t t t 
In answer to your inquiry I would say that it 
seems to me there are so many and such strong 
arguments for a life hereafter that it is difficult to 
select from them. If I were to say in a word what 
impresses me most habitually and strongly, it is the 
impossibility of conceiving of the universe as a cos- 
mos, a beautiful order, a sane and rational system, 
without immortality. 

PROF. ED. GASC-DES FOSSES t t 

I am very happy to send you with m.y greatest 
sincerity, the result of my own deductions on the 
question of the continuation of the existence of the 
soul after death.^ 

To begin with, and for the purpose of putting the 
question from the start in the clearest way, it does 
not appear to me as if the answer to be made can 
ever be scientific, — if by science we mean a "knowl- 
edge such as the given demonstration of which inev- 
itably and necessarily imposes itself upon every 
intelligence." I am thoroughly persuaded that the 
solution must be a belief, a moral certainty, in 
which sentiment and will have a share and a large 

1 Translation by J. Delmotte. 

(205) 



2o6 Proofs of Life After Death 

share at that. In order therefore to avoid the strict 
and precise meaning of the word proof, which is not 
in place here, I will say that there are four main rea- 
sons for believing in personal immortality, and these 
reasons will of course be of unequal value, varying 
according to the moral value of the human being 
to which they apply. 

First: A reason to which a certain number of 
philosophers only accord a very limited credit, but 
which in my opinion is very important, is the argu- 
ment furnished by moral anthropology, which may 
be termed an ethnographic (race) argument. 
Amongst all people, at all epochs of history, (even 
at prehistoric times) from the rudest and least civil- 
ized tribes to those of the highest intellectual devel- 
opment, the belief in an after existence is every- 
where; often this belief is clothed in the most 
primitive forms, the most materialistic, if we may 
so express it. But after allowing for the special 
guidance which philosophical or religious system, 
whatever they may be, can give to these beliefs, I 
think one can say, that it is an indication of the 
existence of an instinct of a high order which is one 
of the characteristics of humanity. 

This is what the old traditional philosopher called 
"the proof of universal consent." If the name of 
science is given especially to all research based on 
facts, it can be said that this argument in favor of 
the immortality of the soul has a scientific value, as 



i 



The Philosophers 207 

all its strength lies in establishing a fact which is 
universally human. 

Second: Next comes the psychological argu- 
ment. We find, at the very bottom of our being, 
aspirations which are, according to the nature and 
character of each one, more or less active, whose aim 
is the possession or realization of an ideal, inacces- 
sible under the conditions of this life: ideal of beauty, 
of truth, or of moral goodness, but it is always an 
ideal. Hence, would it not be a strange contradic- 
tion, capable of scandalizing, putting to shame, of 
misleading, in a most cruel and lamentable way, all 
those who try to analyze our souls and to pierce the 
mystery of our destiny, if after having carefully 
searched, after having anxiously scrutinized our 
mental nature, we had to resign ourselves to this 
deceiving conclusion: "Our aspirations towards an 
ideal, our need of perfection, are nothing but a sec- 
ular illusion, a kind of transcending hallucination, 
untiring in itself, it is true, but, nevertheless, without 
a real terminus; an original and incurable mental 
malformation ; the human race, during its life on this 
planet, is condemned without respite and unceas- 
ingly to this lamentable odyssey of the Wandering 
Jew, in pursuit of a chimera, this absurd trade of 
Tantalus or of Sisypheus beginning over and over 
again a work that never ends," 

Can we reasonably adhere to this opinion, when 
we hear the greatest, noblest and most admirable 



2o8 Proofs of Life After Death 

thinkers, call with their most ardent entreaties, a 
light, a beauty, when we see them tortured and tor- 
mented by an ardent and unquenchable thirst for the 
infinite? 

"It appears to me," says Newton, "that I have 
been nothing but a child playing on the seashore 
and finding now a pebble a little more polished, then 
a shell a little more brilliant, while the great ocean 
of Truth, before me, was unexplored." If everything 
has its reason for existing, if every being is capable 
of realizing its end, of accomplishing, in accordance 
with its own nature, its "own acts," as says Aristotle, 
how then, alone amongst all beings in nature, could 
man, who is the highest in dignity, be a frightful 
blunder, "an incomprehensible monster," as dra- 
matically and so energetically expressed by Pascal? 
If our soul has infinite aspirations, we have the right 
to think that its wishes have a tendency towards an 
infinite Being, and that only this union with 
Supreme Reality in another life, can satisfy its sub- 
lime impatience. 

Third: It may appear, at first sight, that the 
metaphysical argument could not be more convinc- 
ing than the psychological one, the main ideas of 
which we have summed up. In fact, by distinguish- 
ing the body, composite and corruptible, from the 
soul, simple and hence not decomposable, we are 
told: "This difference proves most certainly that 
our soul, after the terrestrial life is terminated, must 



The Philosophers 209 

continue to live, as nothing is lost or destroyed," as 
science teaches. If we only had this reason for 
hoping in a prolongation of life, after our ephemer- 
ous appearance on this planet will have terminated, 
I loudly declare that we have no cause for rejoic- 
ing at this perspective, nor to feel encouraged and 
comforted in the midst of the trials and struggles of 
this life. 

In fact, it may be, as we are taught by the doc- 
trines of monists (called until yesterday, panthe- 
ists), that each soul is but a part, a fragment of the 
imique, the impersonal and in fact indestructible 
substance, and consequently, as soon as this passing 
union of m.y soul with my body is terminated (irre- 
spective of its inward essence), it could re-enter into 
the Grand Whole, the same as each atom, after the 
dissolution of a body, subsists and is liable to become 
part of another composite body; but if I do not sub- 
sist, I, who have lived in this life, and if the soul that 
survives after death is not the same as the soul that 
has loved, thought, made efforts and struggled dur- 
ing the years of my mortal peregrination, what care 
I if it survives or if it is destroyed? Will it not be 
the same for the concrete being, the only real one 
that I am after all, and the only one that is of inter- 
est to me? Besides, it may still be said, that the soul, 
whose nature is simple, could not perish by decom- 
position. This may be; its definition makes it nearly 
evident: but if God has created our souls, cannot 



210 Proofs of Life After Death 

He, when He wants, withdraw from them the being 
that He, so to speak, gratuitously and benevolently 
lent them? Consequently, our souls could return to 
naught, whence they were taken, for a time. 

From an exclusively metaphysical standpoint, it 
appears that this argument cannot be answered: it 
will be done by the following argument: 

Fourth: Therefore, the metaphysical argument 
would not be, by itself, conclusive. Then, here is 
the moral argument which, in my opinion, is the last 
and supreme reason of the belief in the personal sur- 
vival. It is indispensably just that the virtuous man 
should be recompensed for his struggles, for his 
efforts, and that the guilty man should be punished ; 
but this is far from being observed in actual life; the 
feehng of justice, the thirst for a rigorous and abso- 
lute equity, would not be satisfied if the agreement 
made in this life, but invariably broken, was not 
re-established in the supplement or complement of 
this life. And it is the main reason why we cannot, 
nor must not, admit that our soul is destroyed 
together with our ephemerous remains at the time 
of death. It would be denying all morality, courting 
merit and demerit for nothing, and reducing sanc- 
tion to naught. It is a rigorous obligation for us to 
have confidence in the final triumph of justice, 
whose immutable law overlooks everything, and 
whose rights are imprescriptible (inalienable). In 
this, poets, it seems to me, express well and better 



itfSK 



The Philosophers 211 

than philosophers, this need of absolute justice. 
These admirable verses of Lamartine say more, in 
my opinion, about the problem of immortality than 
theories carefully prepared:^ 

,,pDur moi, quand je verrais dans les celestes plaines 
Les astres, s'ecartant de leurs routes certaines, 
Dans les champs de I'ether I'un par I'autre heurt6s 
Pareourir au hazard les cieux epouvantes; 
Quand j'entendrais gemir et se briser la terre; 
Quand je verrais son globe, errant et solitaire, 
Flottant loin des soleiis pleurant Thomme detruit, 
Seperdre dans les champs de I'eternelle nuit; 
Et quand, dernier temoin de ces scenes funebres, 
Entoure du chaos, de la mort, des tenebres, 
Seul je serais debout: seul malgre mon effroi, 
Etre infaillible et bon, j^espererais en toi, 
Et, certain du retour de I'eternelle aurore, 
Sur les mondes detruits je t'attendrais encore." 

There would be thus, all the difference between 
the metaphysical argument and the argument (this 
being only an analogy) that separates a negative 
from a positive dem.onstration. "The soul must not 
perish," says the first; "the soul must continue to 
live," says the second, and it is for this reason that 
its meaning is more complete and more instructive 
than that of the first. 



2 English translation, see p. 268. 



212 Proofs of Life After Death 

We saw in beginning these reflections, that senti- 
ment plays quite a part in the belief in immortality, 
and it seems difficult to doubt that such is the case. 
What a terrible shattering of all our being we would 
sustain, and what protestations would we utter if at 
the moment of supreme parting we did not have the 
consoling thought that we would say to those who 
leave us, "Au revoir," instead of ''Adieu". 

What despair would be that of a mother, a brother, 
a son, a sister, who, seeing death strike a dear one, 
accomplishing its work of destruction slowly but 
surely, could only say: "As soon as the parting 
takes place, everything is finished, irrevocably fin- 
ished, forever, and we will never see each other 
again, we will never be re-united; silence, night, 
nothingness, frightful eternal nothingness, this is 
where ends so strong and ardent an affection, whose 
aspiration it was to endure forever." This cannot be. 
But sages and cold philosophers — those who reason 
about everything, and so well at that — ^will say it is 
only "a sentimicnt," and th refore only a thing of no 
value, a phantasmagoria, a deceiving dream. Well, 
no; when a sentiment is so intimately in harmony 
with ideas v/hich appear to be its indispensable and 
imperious commentary, it cannot be deceiving. 
Consider it poetry and dreams if you wish, but 
poetry has here more penetrating intuitions, and 
truer than the conclusions reached by cold reason- 
ing; flights more luminous, from the heights of 



The Philosophers 213 

which the meaning of life appears in its trite light 

You were therefore perfectly right when saying 
"that this subject of personal identity after death 
is an eternal and mighty question," and its solution 
is the hinge of the whole of human life. I recall here 
those so eminent thoughts of Pascal: 

"The immortality of the soul is a matter that coti- 
cerns us so much, that affects us so deeply, that we 
must have lost all sentiment, if its investigation 
leaves us indifferent. All our actions and thoughts 
follow paths so different, varying according to the 
hope of gaining eternal blessings or not, that it is 
impossible to take any sensible or judicious step, 
without regulating it from this standpoint, which 
must be our final object." 

Our wonderful poet, Lamartine, excellently says 
in his beautiful verses in addressing Death :^ 

,,Quand mon oeil fatigue se ferme a la lumiSre, 
Tu viens d'un jour plus pur inonder ma paupiere; 
Et Pespoir, pres de roi revant sur un tombeau, 
Appuye sur ma foi, m'ouvre un monde plus beau, 
Viens done, vien detacher mes chaines corporelles, 
Viens, ouvre ma prison, viens, prete moi tes ailes, 
Que tardes-tu? Parais; que je m'^lance enfin 
Vers cet etre, inconnu, mon principe et ma fin." 

I am very happy, dear sir, to send you these 

3 Englisd translation, see p. 263 



214 Proofs of Life After Death 

thoughts and expressions of my feelings on this 
question. 

DR. RICHARD J. NUNN t t t 

I thank you for the opportunity you afford me of 
corresponding with you upon the subject to which 
you allude; but while I would be glad to speak with 
you upon these matters, I would not have the temer- 
ity of associating my name with those of the celebri- 
ties you name. In my obscurity and with but little 
association with the great world of thinkers, I have 
formed my own views, but they are only tentative, 
liable to be changed at any time when facts of which 
I am now profoundly ignorant may be brought to 
my attention. Moreover, I am now too unwell to 
write fully on this subject of subjects, on this dom- 
inating idea of the mind of thinking man. While I 
cannot go lengthily into the subject, I will, how- 
ever, with your permission, lay down some proposi- 
tions for your consideration. 

The capacity of the mind of man differs in each 
race and in each individual. The Negro, the Mon- 
gol, the Caucasian dif er from each other in mental 
caliber, and the philosophy which suffices for one 
may be unsatisfactory or incomprehensible to the 
other, and this is equally true of individuals within 
the same race. It follows that a conclusion which 
seems to one perfectly logical and satisfying, may to 
another appear stupid, or irreverent. Of necessity, 



The Philosophers 215 

then, it becomes to me a folly to imagine that the 
human mind can ever be forced into one mold. 

PROF. J. GRASSET t t t 

I am spiritualist in my philosophy and a Cath- 
olic in my religion, which implies, that I believe in 
the immortality of the soul and in future life. 

PROF. JAMES LINFORD t t t 

I submit the following as being the principal rea- 
sons I have for a belief in the existence of man's soul 
after death: 

The revelation of God's will to man in ancient 
and in modern times. 

The universal or almost universal idea in the mind 
of man in all stages of civilization of a God, and the 
existence of the soul after death. 

In addition to the above, the following has con- 
siderable weight with me: Under normal condi- 
tions the "eternal progression" noted in the intel- 
lectual life of man is very significant. There is not 
observed a rise, culmination and decline in the mind 
of those living an intellectual and spiritual life, the 
ideal life, in my opinion, of man; but a gradual devel- 
opment to the end. If this life is to end all, why this 
loss of energy? why not the usual law, "rise, cul- 
mination and decline," noted in earthly experiences? 
So far as the body of man is concerned this law holds 
good; but the soul, the intellect, does not show, to 



21 6 Proofs of Life After Death 

any marked extent, this deterioration; but on the 
contrary, a development to the last. The soul under 
the new conditions following death will contine to 
develop. Eternal progression is the watchword God 
has set for the soul — onward and upward — no inac- 
tivity, no stagnation. In my opinion, God Himself 
is an illustration of this law. To-day the idea of 
stagnation is inconsistent with the teachings of sci- 
ence and philosophy. The future state of man is 
more or less a principle ofcontinuous progression 
marked out in this life. The belief of the Latter-day 
Saints that "As man is, God once was; and as God 
is, man may be," is the most philosophical of all 
ideas concerning our Divine Father. 

FRANK A. PUTNAM t t t 

No one has ever offered positive proof that there 
is not an individual life after this one. We are, there- 
fore, free to believe in the fact of a future life. The 
solution of the problem rests on individual tempera- 
ment. Either we wish for a future life and so expect 
it, or WQ. do not wish for it and so do not expect it. 
My own belief is that we live invisibly in the influ- 
ences which we communicate to mankind; visibly, 
in the persons of our posterity. 

PROF. J. VV. OSBORNE t t t 

I have your letter relating to the continuance of 
life and to personal identity after death. 



The Philosophers 217 

It is true that I have worked at and given much 
consideration to this subject, but very bad health 
for a long time, and age, have interfered with results. 
It interests me to find you working in the same field 
and I shall be glad to learn of the success that has 
attended your efiforts now or at any other time. 

My personal views on this subject it would be 
unwise for me to give, because, as a collector of 
many opinions, I came in contact with a great vari- 
ety of persons, and it is important that I not only 
am, but appear to be impartial, or rather neutral. 

But my opinion as to the strongest argument "in 
favor" of a future state of existence, I may be able 
to give you in some sort as follows: 

A very large number of persons wish to believe in 
a life after death; such persons very generally pos- 
tulate two things, namely, the existence of a God 
and of their own souls. So fortified, they look for- 
ward with trust to an hereafter, and their reason is 
the strongest from the spiritual as well as from the 
common-sense point of view that I know of. They 
conceive that the Almighty being good, would act 
rightly, which in most cases means, as they would 
act or think they would act themselves. They 
would not create beings of their own importance for 
a short existence only, eternal life for such would 
suggest itself at once. A finite existence would not 
give time for the adjustment of wrongs and errors; 
and therefore, God, who had the power and the wis- 



2i8 Proofs of Life After Death 

dom, too, would surely provide by some natural 
blessing for His creatures by giving them eternal 
life. That God, after having made man and placed 
him in this beautiful world, should there undo that 
great work for each particular man, and thereby add 
annihilation as one of his benefits, is hardly conceiv- 
able, at least to make it so would require a profound 
readjustment of most persons' ideas of God and of 
goodness. 

Thus, for the very large class of persons I speak 
of, it is a belief in God that supports faith in 
Immortality, and, reciprocally, it is the desire for 
Immortality that sustains the belief in God most 
substantially, for to live forever without a God, in 
the universe, would tax one's imagination and one's 
faith. 

You will understand I am trying to answer your 
specialized question, not stating my own views on 
the general subject. 

DR. GEORGE C. PITZER t t t 

The desire is the best evidence I have that we 
shall live again and be conscious of it. 

DR. J. M. WHITON t t t t 

The best philosophical ground for believing in 
the survival of death by self-conscious persons was 
stated by Thomas Hill Green (Oxford) thus: That 
it is impossible to conclude without the sense of 



The Philosophers 219 

intellectual absurdity, that an order of things which 
has for its visible end the construction of self-con- 
scious personality, should ultimate in the extinction 
of the same. 

The best psychological argument that I am aware 
of may be embodied (after the fashion of the cele- 
brated reply made by his chaplain to Frederick the 
Great) in one word: The "Martyrs." That is: A con- 
stant phenomenon of human nature is the sacrifice 
of physical life to preserve certain qualities of moral 
life; as truth, purity, integrity. Unless these quali- 
ties subsist in a life that endures beyond the physical 
existence, the dictate of the moral nature . that 
enjoins their preservation by the sacrifice of the 
physical is deceptive. We cannot without intellect- 
ual confusion attribute irrationality of the instinct- 
ive action of the noblest element in our nature. 

DR. H. E. BUTLER t t t 

In reply to your request for a statement of our 
deductions on the subject of the continuation of the 
existence of the soul, I would say: First, that to 
the blind man who wants tangible evidence of the 
e^dstence of lights, shadows and colors, no satis- 
factory evidence can be given; to the skeptical deaf 
man musical harmony is a myth; a superstition. Out 
of the millions of inhabitants of this planet there are 
about two-thirds who believe in the immortality of 
the soul and continued individuality of the person 



220 Proofs of Life After Death 

after the decease of the body. At least two-thirds of 
this number have had tangible evidence of the ability 
of the departed to return and communicate with 
those in the body. Therefore my testimonial, which 
would be that I have absolute knowledge of this 
being a fact, would be as a drop in the ocean com- 
pared with the testimonials of millions now living 
and thousands who have passed over. The testi- 
monials of these is undoubtedly the strongest evi- 
dence to those who are blind and deaf to spiritual 
things. No scientific fact has any stronger evidence 
than this. 

Second, though not second in importance, is the 
fact that any person, no matter how skeptical or 
materialistic in his tendencies, who will live the life 
of a celibate ; overcoming all waste of the vital fluids 
and keeping active the desire to know something of 
the cause world, will, within one year after all invol- 
untary losses have been overcome, have evidences 
in sight, hearing and touch of the continued exist- 
ence of the soul of man. He will also realize that 
there are greater realities and more tangible facts 
relative to that existence than there are to the exist- 
ence of the external and physical senses. It must be 
remembered, however, that belief or attention has a 
great deal to do with the consciousness of a person. 
I^or instance, a mechanic may be working at his 
bench; his mind busy; he wants a tool; he searches 
for that tool, but cannot find it, while all the time it 



The Fhilcsophers 221 

is lying before his eyes; he may even handle the tool 
■and lay it aside, but does not find it. This illustrates 
the necessity of a person's giving thought and atten- 
tion to that for which he is seeking. The effect of 
this belief and attention to the thought has been 
illustrated in the case of the Buddhist priests in 
China and India. It has been authenticated by 
reliable Western skeptics that Buddhist priests 
firmly believe that when the body dies the soul will 
return, reincarnate and take charge of the same 
temple; consequently the soul holds its memories to 
the extent that when it is reincarnated as a babe, 
before the time that ordinary children are able to 
speak, the child informs its parents that it is the 
incarnation of such a priest, who had charge of such 
a temple, and that it wishes to return to that temple. 
The priests of the temple are informed of the fact 
and they go to see the child, carrying with them the 
vessels and articles that were used by that priest, 
along with many like articles. The babe then selects 
the articles that belonged to him whilst in his former 
body and answers certain questions, which are suf- 
ficient to convince the most skeptical that he is the 
identical priest. He is then taken to the temple and 
assumes his position as high priest. These facts 
have been corroborated by the most skeptical inves- 
tigators of Oriental religion. 

There is a great deal that passes as evidence of the 
immortality of the soul among over-credulous spir- 



222 Proofs of Life After Death ) 

itualists, which is the cause of much of the skep- \ 

ticism now existing among men. Among all the ; 

so-called spirit manifestations through the ordinary ? 

medium there is very little that is genuine, and that 
which is genuine is the work of nature spirits as a 
rule, who are simiply playing with the medium and 
sitter. Therefore, among spiritualists is not the ; 

place to look for genuine spirit m.anifestation, but in 
one's own personal experience, 

DR. H. W. THOMAS t t t 

To science chaos means cosmos, cosmos means 
life, life means man. Life is the final cause. God is 
life. Life is not only a property of protoplasm, as 
Huxley said — ^we must go deeper, — it is a property 
of nature. Life as life never dies. Reason, truth, 
justice, love — as principles and qualities are neces- 
sarily eternal. The essential man is immortal man. 
This is eternity. Soon the night will be gone and 
with the morn the angels' faces smile. > 

CARDINAL JAMES GIBBONS t t 

The soul is the principle by which we live and 
move and have our being. It is that which forms 
and perpetuates our identity; for it makes us to be 
the same yesterday, to-day and forever. The soul 
has intellectual conceptions and operations of reason 
and judgment independent of material organs. Our 
own experience clearly teaches us this important 
pomt. Our minds grasp what the senses cannot 



The Philosophers 223 

reach. * * * Such a principle being independent 
of matter in its operations, must needs be inde- 
pendent of matter also in its being. It is, therefore, 
of its nature, subject to no corruption resulting from 
matter. Its life, which is its being, is not extin- 
guished and cannot be extinguished with that of the 
body. 

It is well known that there is a constant waste 
going on in every part of the human body which 
has to be renovated by daily nutriment. So steady 
is this exhaustion that, in the judgment of medical 
science, an entire transformation of the physical sys- 
tem occurs every six or eight years. New flesh and 
bones and tissues are substituted for those you had 
before. The hand with which" you write, the brain 
which you exercise in thinking are composed of 
entirely dif¥erent materials. And yet you compre- 
hend to-day what you learned ten years ago, you 
remember and love those with whom you were then 
associated. How is this? You no longer use the 
identical organic substance you then possessed. 
Does it not prove that the faculty, called the soul, 
by which you think, remember and love, is distinct 
from organic matter; that while the body is con- 
stantly changing, the soul remains the same ; that it 
does not share in the process of decomposition and 
renewal through which the human frame is passing, 
and therefore that it is a spiritual substance? 

All nations, moreover, have believed in the 



224 Proofs of Life After Death 

immortality of the soul. Such was the faith of the 
people of ancient Greece and Rome, as we learn from 
the writings of Virgil and Ovid. Nor was this belief 
in a future life confined to the uncultivated masses; 
it was taught by the most eminent writers and phil- 
osophers of those polished nations. Socrates, Plato, 
Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and other sages 
of Pagan antiquity, guided only by the light of rea- 
son, proclaimed their belief in the soul's immortality. 

The same views were held by the ancient Egyp- 
tians, the Chaldeans, and Persians, indeed by all the 
nations of Asia whose history has come down to us, 
and by the Germans, Gauls, Britons, and other 
ancient tribes of Europe. If w^e question the Indian 
of North or South Amierica on this point, he will tell 
us of the happy hunting-grounds reserved in after- 
life for the brave. 

We may find nations without cities, without the 
arts and sciences, without mechanical inventions, or 
any of the refinements of civilized life; but a nation 
without some presentiment of the existence of a 
future state, we shall search for in vain. 

Now whence comes this universal belief in man's 
im.mortality? Not from prejudice arising from edu- 
cation; for we shall find this conviction prevailing 
among rude people who have no education what- 
ever, among hostile tribes, and among nations at the 
opposite poles of the earth and who have never had 
intercourse with one another. 



i 



The Philosophers 225 

We must, therefore, conclude that a sentiment so 
general and deep-rooted must have been planted in 
the human breast by Almighty God, just as He has 
implanted in us an instinctive love for truth and jus- 
tice, and an inveterate abhorrence of falsehood and 
injustice. 

Not only has mankind a firm belief in the immor- 
tality of the soul, but there is inborn in every human 
breast a desire for perfect felicity. This desire is so 
strong in man that it is the mainspring of all his 
actions, the engine that keeps in motion the machin- 
ery of society. 

Now God would never have planted in the human 
heart this craving after perfect felicity, unless He 
had intended that the desire should be fully grati- 
fied; for He never designed that man should be the 
sport of vain and barren hopes. He never creates 
anything in vain; but He would have created some- 
thing to no purpose if He had given us the thirst for 
perfect bliss without imparting to us the means of 
assuaging it. 

It is true that this desire never can be fully real- 
ized in the present life. Can earthly goods ade- 
quately satisfy the cravings of the human heart and 
fill up the measure of its desires? Experience proves 
the contrary. 

Can honors fully gratify the aspirations of the 
soul? No. The more brilliant and precious the 



226 Proofs of Life After Death 

crown, the more heavily it presses upon the brow 
that wears it. 

I have seen and contemplated two of the greatest 
rulers on the face of the earth — the civil ruler of 
seventy-five millions, and the spiritual ruler of two 
hundred and fifty millions of people. I have con- 
versed with the President and the Pope in their pri- 
vate apartments; and I am convinced that their 
exalted position, far from satisfying- the aspirations 
of their soul, did but fill them with a profound sense 
of their grave responsibility. 

Can earthly pleasures make one so happy as to 
leave nothing to be desired? Assuredly not. The 
keen edge of delight soon becomes blunted. 

We find great comfort in this life in the society of 
loving friends and relatives. But how frail is the 
thread that binds friends and kindred together! 

Another source of exquisite delight is found in 
the pursuit of knowledge. The higher we ascend 
the mount of knowledge, the broader becomes our 
view of the vast fields of science that still remain 
uncultivated by us. 

But the greatest consolation attainable in this life 
is found in the pursuit and practice of virtue. But 
this consolation arises from the well-founded hope of 
future bliss rather than from the fulfillment of our 
desires. The virtuous are happy because they have 
"a promise to pay," and not because they have 



The Philosophers 227 

received the actual payment of the debt of Divine 
justice. 

Thus we see that neither riches, nor honors, nor 
pleasures, nor knowledge, nor the endearments of 
social and family ties, nor the pursuit of virtue, can 
fully satisfy our aspirations after happiness. Com- 
bine all these pleasures as far as they are susceptible 
of combination. Let each of their sources be aug- 
mented a thousand-fold. Let these intensified 
gratifications be concentrated on one man, let him 
have the undoubted assurance of enjoying them for 
a thousand years, yet will he be forced to exclaim: 
"Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity." The more 
delicious the cup, the more bitter the thought that 
death will dash it to pieces. 

Now, if God has given us a desire for perfect felic- 
ity, which He intends to be one day fully gratified; 
and if this felicity, as we have seen, cannot be found 
in the present life, it must be reserved for the life to 
come. And as no intelligent being can be con- 
tented with any happiness that is finite in duration, 
we must conclude that it will be eternal, and that, 
consequently, the soul is immortal. Life that is not 
to be crowned with immortality is not worth living. 
"If a life of happiness," says Cicero, "is to end, it 
cannot be called a happy life. * * * Take away 
eternity, and Jupiter is not better off than Epi- 
curus." 
Without the hope of immortality, the condition of 



228 Proofs of Life After Death 

man is less desirable than that of the beasts v^i the 
field. 

"Through ev'ry scene of sense superior far: 

They graze the turf untill'd; they drink the stream 

Unbrewed and ever full, and unemhittered 

With doubts,, fears, fruitless hopes, regrets, despairs." 

PROF. PRINCE TARKHANE-MOURAWOFF 

The question which you kindly ask me is one of 
the most mysterious ones of human existence. It 
overflows the limits and competence of physical and 
biological science and pertains to the series of final 
causes with regard to which experimental sciences 
have had to admit their complete powerlessness. 

It is therefore natural that as a pysiologist and 
biologist I can neither deny nor affirm the continua- 
tion of the life of the soul after death. This is more 
a question of faith or belief than of human knowl- 
edge and being considered as such it ought to be 
rather upheld than denied, in the interest of the great 
majority of humanity, by lofty minds. 

The following are the reasons why I am of such an 
opinion : 

First: The beHef in the continuation of the life 
of the soul after death contributes towards the study 
of this grave question and may lead to positive 
proofs, if they can ever be had. It is not by nega- 
tions a priori and in advance that human knowledge 
develops itself, and it is only from believers that we 



The Philosophers 229 

can hope to secure proofs, more or less conclusive, of 
the immortality of the soul. 

Second: This principle of the immortality of the 
soul is closely allied to the religious sentiment of 
man, the practical and moral importance of which is 
appreciated by the majority of humanity. 

Third: The belief in the future life of the soul, 
this belief in the "Beyond," helps to ease life in this 
"World," a life which for the majority is replete 
with suffering and worries. It promises the contin- 
uance of one's conscious "Self" in other spheres of 
existence after the days spent on this earth, instead 
of an ill-omened nothingness. 

Humanity being thus inspired can bear death 
with greater ease. 

DR. EDWARD R. KNOWLES t t 

Caroline C. Leighton writes: "Do we fear lest 
our human consciousness and identity should be lost 
in the overwhelming vicissitude of death?" 

"The qualities of matter," says Du Bois-Reymond, 
"are eternal and inalienable." Can this be true of 
matter, and be questioned in regard to spirit? Who 
can believe that the individuality so toilsomely 
evolved in all our varied experiences will ever be 
merged in one great sea of being by One to whom 
individuality is so precious that He never makes 
even two grass-blades or two leaves on a tree pre- 
cisely alike? She also says, that to the material 



230 Proofs of Life After Death 

world's conception "just when everything appears 
to have come to a final disastrous issue, may be the 
moment of our triumph." The result of my reflec- 
tions has been to convince me that, considering the 
character we attribute to our Maker and the interest 
we believe Him to take in the work of His hands, it 
must be that each one dies just at the moment when 
his welfare will be best promoted by dying; that we 
can never speak of an untimely death, nor one 
sphere to another as a waste of life. 

PROF. ANDERSON W. ANDERSON t 

I think I can give the substance of my own atti- 
tude in a very few words. 

First: I do not attach much importance to the 
so-called arguments from science and philosophy 
either one way or the other; that is to say, I think 
in the present state of our knowledge, neither an 
affirmative or a negative answer has any decided 
preponderance over the other in probability. What 
advantage there is either way, I would not under- 
take to say. 

Second: I think the recent investigations of 
Professor Hyslop, Dr. Hodgson and others are not 
yet complete enough to be convincing. There has 
not been time enough for consideration and a thor- 
ough, co-operative, critical working of the field. 

Third: I believe in personal immortality (at 
least for some). I do so, perhaps, for several rea- 



The Philosophers 231 

sons which have force with myself, but which I 
might find it difficult to persuade others by: Tem- 
perament, habit and training have much to do with 
my belief; a deliberate choice of a Christian point of 
view as being the most hopeful and stimulating pos- 
sible to me after making due allowance for the evil in 
the world; a belief in the teachings of Jesus of Naz- 
areth as giving us truth with an assurance of cer- 
tainty, a clearness, and a satisfactoriness which 
indicate more than human knowledge and foresight. 

STANLEY WATERLOO t t t 

My reasons for believing in the existence of a soul 
and of a continuation of its identity I can explain but 
clumsily, though they are to me sufficient. 

Through our senses we recognize that the uni- 
verse is conducted on a plan which, of course, 
involves a Power behind all, an intelligent Power. 
We are in the hands of that Power and its general 
course is beneficence, for death may be but an inci- 
dent in progress. There is a change tO' something 
beyond our power to understand, and we can but 
reason by our weak human deductions. We may as 
well give it up. 

As to continued identity, supposing there be a 
soul, we know that in all nature the death, or change 
phenomenon, produces Hke. The plant dies in the 
autumn, but when its seed awakens in the spring it 



232 Proofs of Life After Death 

produces that same plant. No pink comes from the 
seed or soul of a rose. 

There is another thing which appeals most 
strongly to me as evidence of another life with the 
same identity. It is the fact that we all want it. 
Now, Nature, or the Power, does nothing without 
intent. If the life we want were not to come to us 
we would not have the longing, it seems to me. A 
thought is as much a real product of the Power as 
is a plant. 

These are the ideas that aid and strengthen me. 

DR. H. A. REID t t t 

First: The existence of God is simply an eternal 
fact ; men's ideas about God are various and change- 
ful. 

Second: Volition or Will is, in the last analysis, 
the only unconditioned or inscrutable universal 
power — the absolute primary potential of creative- 
ness in all the universe. 

Third: Man is a result of creational (or evolu- 
tional) processes — an evolved product; and he is an 
intelligent volitional being, on a finite scale. 

Fourth: Therefore, the power or cause which 
produced man must be volitional and intelligent on 
an infinite scale. It could not produce in man 
rational and psychic endowments which it did not 
have potentially in itself antecedent to any incept or 
primal atomic vortex in the infinite past which ulti- 




The Philosophers 233 

mated in the production of the phenomenal cosmos 
and of man as a dweller in it. 

Fifth: Man as an animal or carnate being is a 
product by evolutional processes through the entire 
zoic succedaneum of our earth. 

Sixth: The so-called "senses" by which animal 
life can take cognizance of its physical environment 
have been gradually evolved from one up to five, as 
now possessed by all warm-blooded animals. 

Seventh: Man through his whole history has. 
been and still is in the process of evolving a sixth 
sense, whereby he takes cognizance of his spiritual 
environment, becomes self-conscious of himself as a 
spiritual being, self-conscious of God as a spiritual 
being, and conscious of other spiritual or discarnate 
finite beings not discerned by any one or all of his 
five physical senses. 

Eighth: The quickened or awakened conscious- 
ness of this sixth sense is the psychic fact or phe- 
nomenon which Jesus Christ spoke of as being 
"born again" — "born of the spirit" — and, when 
fully unfolded, its possessor is just as distinctly con- 
scious of the reality of the spiritual realm as he is of 
the physical realm of life on our planet. 

Ninth: Evidences of the partial unfoldment of 
this spiritual or sixth sense are abundant in all 
human history, both sacred and profane. Its uncor- 
related and misinterpreted data have given rise to 
the superstitions, vagaries, idolatries, and false or 



.-.■:i';,-w.-.;iSK<!r 



234 Proofs of Life After Death 

imperfect religions, which bestrew the pages of his- 
tory as thickly as extinct animal fossils bestrew the 
rocks. 

Tenth: The spiritual or sixth sense reached its 
perfect unfoldment in Jesus Christ, in harmonious 
correlation with the other senses, and thus made 
Him historically the "first born" of a new type of 
sentient life on the earth — daily cognizant of both 
the spiritual and physical habitat of both incarnate 
and discarnate intelligent beings. 

Eleventh: Within recent years psychical research 
has demonstrated the objective reality of discarnate 
beings as a part of the divine economy or order of 
nature in our world; so that no longer is the belief 
in discarnate or angelic intrusions into the affairs of 
mankind contingent on a traditional acceptance of 
Bible narratives, nor on church authority, nor on 
credence given to professional "mediums." It is 
now an acquired fact of science and cannot be gain- 
said. 

Twelfth: Nevertheless, the mere intellectual 
acceptance of this fact will not satisfy the soul. 
Nothing short of a living self-consciousness of the 
fact within itself will be soul-satisfying and restful. 

Thirteenth: Sir William Crookes' experiments 
with spirit mediums, as reported in the "British 
Quarterly Journal of Science," 1871 to 1874 (pub- 
lished in a volume of 112 pages, by James Burns, 
London), and my own work — "Unseen Faces Pho- 



The Philosophers . 235 

tographed" — are, I think, the most crucial proofs of 
discarnate beings as objective realities yet brought 
to public attention. I have proved and settled it 
beyond a peradventure that spirit photography has 
occurred as a veritable phenomenon, independent of 
any trick or skill or volition or knowledge of the 
"medium." 

DR. EDWARD W. MERCER t t t 

I know of no strong reason or argument in favor 
of the continued existence of the soul or personal 
identity after death. It seems to me that such a 
belief is founded rather upon faith than reason. It 
will be very interesting to know the results of your 
investigations and I hope I may be able to obtain 
them. 

HENRY E. HEIGHTON t t t 

So far as the special occasion for your inquiry is 
concerned, my entire answer is comprised in Ten- 
nyson's poem, "In Memoriam," which reveals the 
truest sources of the consolation that would be arid, 
if individualized immortality were denied. 

On the main question, however, I am enabled to 
say that, for more than fifty years, I have had no 
doubt whatever of the fact that what we call death is 
but the transition to a higher or lower life, in other 
words, "the continued existence of the soul or per- 
sonal identity." 



236 Proofs of Life After Death 

*'The strongest reason or argument" for this con- 
clusion, in my mind, has always been the impossi- 
bility of conceiving my own individual annihilation. 
I cannot think at all, except upon the assumption of 
my own existence, which, as a necessary premise to 
every act of reasoning, is a fact that I at least cannot 
obliterate. 

This, however, does not prevent my acceptance 
of other and numerous lines of argument, all con- 
verging upon an identical conclusion. 

I believe the authenticity of the Bible, and especi- 
ally the New Testament, to have been established by 
more exemplary proofs than I have ever known to be 
adduced upon any proposition in a court of justice. 
To me it is sustained by all the canons of evidence, 
rigidly applied. Therefore, I believe in the resur- 
rection of Christ, which has been more constantly 
and emphatically attested than any single fact, of 
which I have any knowledge, recorded in history. 
When any fact is demonstrated, its mere character, 
its apparent antagonism to natural laws, has no 
effect whatever upon me. I am prepared to accept 
everything that is proved. There are many things 
in daily experience now that, if I had existed cen- 
turies ago, would have been as remarkable to me as 
the raising of the dead, of which there are so many 
instances recorded by biblical writers. 

The whole course of ancient and modern history, 
the literature, the philosophy, the poetry of the 



The Philosophers 23; 

Tvorld, the mental constitution of man, his aspira- 
tions, and indeed his necessities, the inequaHties and 
the imperfections of social and individual life, the 
temporary injustice and failures which disfigure 
liuman progress, the authority of accumulated opin- 
ions and beliefs — these and many other considera- 
tions, which it would take a volume to express, all 
<:onverge in my reasoning upon the central truth, of 
Tvhich I am personally conscious. 

Therefore, with me, the question to which you 
refer has passed beyond the reign of debate. 

PROF. NATHANIEL BUTLER t t 

Aside from the assurances that appeal directly to 
Christian faith, the consideration that seems to me 
most powerfully to suggest an afBrmative answer to 
the question of existence — personal identity — after 
death, is the fact that men have always believed, and 
do now as much as ever believe, in the genuineness 
of this affirmation without asking why or on what 
igrounds. It is set in us tO' believe it. The instinct 
carries with it implication of its essential verity. 

DR. VV. T. HARRIS t t t 

I have been very much interested in the question 
of individual immortality throughout my life and 
have formerly written on the subject on many occa- 
sions. One of my essays on the subject, published 
in my "Journal of Speculative Philosophy," I sent 
you by mail the other day. Personally, I have felt 



238 Proofs of Life 'After Death 

as certain about the immortality of the individual as 
I have about the truths of mathematics, being sure 
that any theory that anyone may form of the world 
will logically involve the immortality of the indi- 
vidual. Only by misunderstanding the logical 
sequence can one arrive at any conclusion which 
denies immortality. I have discussed the psycholog- 
ical bearings of the question in chapter XXVI of 
my "Psychological Foundations of Education." 

The proofs on which most men rely for their con- 
viction that they will continue their individual exist- 
ence after death are: The return to life of those 
v/ho have died — a resurrection in the body — notably 
the example which the Christian church teaches as 
the basis of its faith and as the symbol of the resur- 
rection of the individual man. 

The physical manifestation of individuality after 
death by the exertion of power to control matter, or 
to materialize in temporary bodies, as in cases of 
reported modern and ancient Spiritualism. 

General belief in the existence of the soul after 
death, and the probability that such general beliefs 
of mankind are well founded. 

General desire of man to live forever, and his hor- 
ror at annihilation; probability that a desire imparted 
to his nature has a reality correspondent to it. 

The infinite perfectibility of the human mind; its 
full capacity never realized in this life; each new 
growth in knowledge or insight, or power of will, or 



The Philosophers 



239 



love for the race, being always a means of greater 
growth in the same and other directions ; contrary to 
the course of nature, or to the divine character to 
endow a. being with capacities never to be devel- 
oped. 

Besides these, there is the proof from the stand- 
point of evolution. The world is so made that the 
principle of the survival of the fittest causes intel- 
lectual and moral beings to come to the top. Spir- 
itual beings gain the mastery inevitably and 
subordinate all others — reverse, in fact, the laws of 
survival in the lower orders. Preserve delicate plants 
and delicate animals and eradicate noxious ones. 
Such trend of the universe toward spiritual being 
points out, unmistakably, that being as the highest 
and best and most persistent. The spiritual prin- 
ciple alone is loved by the universe, and this points 
to its origin in a spiritual principle which thus loves 
its own. A God of Reason who creates the world in 
order to bring into being independent realizations of 
Himself is thus presupposed by the doctrine of evo- 
lution as propounded by its most consistent advo- 
cate (Mr. John Fiske). 

DR. HALTON I. JESSUP t t t 

I can only say, that I base my hope of a life 
beyond the grave on the fact that I feel man to be 
so immensely superior to all other living animals, 
that there should be something better for him than 
death of the soul as well as the body. 



240 Proofs of Life After Death 

W. J. COLVILLE t t t 

Are we Spirit, or are we Matter? Does matter 
produce mind, or does mind create matter? These 
are questions we must answer; half-way answers will 
not do. Physics or Metaphysics; Materialism or 
Spiritualism, which? We cannot have both; one 
must stand, the other must fall; both cannot stand 
together, as they affirm diametrically opposing pos- 
tulates. Spiritualism, so-called, is often only a sys- 
tem of Materialism with a fragment of Spiritualism 
tacked on by way of ornament; in other cases, it is a 
mass of erroneous theological dogma, with an illogi- 
cal belief in spirit communion added by way of sup- 
plement. We do not wonder that this is so, as we 
cannot forget the previous training the majority of 
persons have had before embracing the fact of spirit 
communion; but an endeavor to support, promul- 
gate and perpetuate so unsatisfying a creed, must of 
necessity result in the utmost mental confusion. 

Longfellow stated the truth in two lines of his sub- 
lime poem, "The Psalm of Life," "Dust thou art, to 
dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul." The 
point of emphasis needs to be laid on the third word 
of the first line in this quotation, "Dust thou art,"' 
was not spoken of the soul, it cannot be truly 
affirmed of the soul; therefore, as an inevitable con- 
sequence, "to dust returnest," cannot be spoken of 
the soul. Everything goes back to its original ele- 



The Philosophers 241 

ments; a stream cannot rise higher than its source; 
an effect cannot be geater than its cause. Now the 
materialistic supposition, a palpable error even on its 
surface, is, that matter is everything; that the basis 
of all life is crude, unconscious matter; that the uni- 
verse is governed by some incomprehensible, blind 
force which, without possessing any intelligence 
whatsoever, is capable of evolving consciousness out 
of unconsciousness; life out of death; spirit out of 
matter. 

Our reason rebels against all such absurdity ; no 
scientist worthy of the name ever propagates such 
trash. Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall and a host of other 
noted men, who, by the way, are only specialists 
after all, and excel only in their own peculiar depart- 
ments of research, disclaim Materialism as much as 
Spiritualism. They call themselves Agnostics; that 
is, they confess they do not know what the basis of 
existence really is; on primal causation they are con- 
fessedly ignorant, and thus leave the coast clear and 
the road open for all who can delve deeper than they 
into the mysteries of man's spiritual anatomy. 

The first great afBrmation of true Spiritualism or 
genuine metaphysical science is, I am spirit, I am 
not matter; spirit is substance, i»iatter is shadow; 
spirit is eternal, matter temporal; mind is immortal, 
the body, mortal. Science in its physical researches 
may find a primordial cell, common to all organ- 
isms, and pronounce this the basis of all organic life. 



242 Proofs of Life After Death 

But protoplasm is an effect, it is not a cause, of life. 
Lamark in France, Darwin in England, and others 
who have come after them, may have gone very far 
to demonstrate the truth of the evolutionary hypoth- 
esis, and indeed the germination of the human foetus 
in the maternal womb goes far to substantiate this 
conclusion, as the embryo itself assumes a variety of 
forms resembling those of lower animals before the 
human shape is perfected; but all such facts utterly 
fail to do more than enable the student of material 
sense to trace the genealogy of form; the underlying 
principle of being is as much a mystery as ever; so 
we are confounded in our scientific colleges with 
great, mysterious, unsolved problems of causation, 
fully as much as when, in the divinity class, where 
old-fashioned theology is expounded, we are told 
that "nothing" was the element out of which God 
made everything. 

Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, all the great minds 
of Greece with which we are familiar through the 
classics, have asserted that the soul itself, the indi- 
vidual ego^ called by the Hindoos the atma, or sev- 
enth and highest principle, in man, has always 
existed and forever will. We hear much of atoms, 
units, and primaries, in scientific parlance; but they 
have eluded every physical research, and what is 
more, they always will; for they exist only in the 
realm of mind; they are living ideas; spiritual enti- 
ties, immortal thoughts of Deity. 



The Philosophers 243 

As soon as we cease to think of ourselves as mat- 
ter, and regard ourselves as pure spirit, we shall have 
demonstrated our immortality to our own conscious- 
ness and found the only key which will unlock the 
chambers of perfect health, rest and happiness in our 
own natures. 

DR. PAUL CARUS t t t 

I take pleasure in sending you a booklet of mine, 
entitled "Whence and Whither?" which contains 
my answer to the question as to the nature and 
immortality of the soul. Allow me to add, however, 
that I do not deem the condition when a man is 
under the "stress of bereavement" the right time to 
study the question. We ought to familiarize our- 
selves with the nature of our own existence, and also 
the nature of immortality, when we are strong and 
in mental health, not when our sentiments are sore 
and demand special treatment. 

I know that my position is not one which will be 
satisfactory to those who seek comfort in extraor- 
dinary revelations or spiritual manifestations, for I 
exclude every argument that would not be tenable 
before the tribunal of science. That, however, may 
in your eyes be rather an advantage than a disad- 
vantage. * * * 

Immortality being the corollary (inference) to the 
truth that we are the continuance of prior life, must 
be regarded as the natural state, and is so much a 



244 Proofs of Life After Death 

matter of course that not it, but its counterpart, 
death, is the real problem that demands a solution. 
Life is in its evolution so much a continuity that 
death seems to contradict the laws of existence. 
Death does not exist in the realm of the lowly organ- 
ized beings. Amoebas and moners grow and divide, 
they do not die. The mother breaks up into two 
daughters, but leaves no corpse behind, for the 
daughters are identical in structure as well as sub- 
stance with the mother. 

If thus immortality be the natural state of life on 
its lowest scale, how is it that death appears with the 
rise of higher forms of life? Is not death, perhaps, 
a factor in the life which is subservient to a purpose 
that works for good? Such in fact is the case; death 
appears in the scale of life as the necessary concom- 
itant of individuality; and individuality originates 
with birth. 

Multiplication by division is not entirely limited to 
the lowest creatures; v/e find it among animals that 
stand comparatively high in the scale of evolution, 
much higher at least than the moner. Some polyps, 
and among them corals, multiply by division. Their 
mouths having the appearance of a flower, grow 
broader in size; the opposite edges approach each 
other at the median line, until they unite. Thus the 
two corners of the mouth are separated for good and 
form two corals upon one stalk. 

There is a great advantage for the animalcules 



The Philoso pliers 245 

that come into existence through a process of multi- 
plication by division. Every moner, every polyp 
thus produced starts in life as a full-fledged creature. 
There is no state of infancy, with all its troubles and 
dangers, to be passed through, for these creatures 
make their first appearance in a state of maturity. It 
is natural that the form and soul of the original 
organism should thus be preserved in all the details 
of their parts. The heredity of these animals is no 
similarity, but absolute identity. 

These advantages are lost in the measure that the 
procreation of new individuals approaches the sys- 
tem of sexual generation. Buds are first very ten- 
der and may easily be injured before they are as 
strong as their mother organism. Spores are helpless 
and may be devoured as food by the many hungry 
animals that swarm about them. And the higher we 
rise in the scale of evolution, the greater becomes the 
difficulties of the germ, of a young animal, of a baby, 
to reach maturity. These disadvantages to the indi- 
vidual, however, are richly overbalanced by the 
higher advantages afiforded through the greater pos- 
sibilities of development and progress. The strug- 
gle for life grows fiercer, yet in and through the 
struggle the organisms grow stronger; they adapt 
themselves to conditions, first unconsciously, then 
consciously, teaching the lessons of a higher moral- 
ity than self-preservation, the ethics of parental love; 



246 Proofs of Life After Death 

and in man they acquire that foresight and circum- 
spection which makes him the lord of creation. 

Death is the twin of birth. Birth and death are 
boundaries with which certain phases of the universal 
life of the race are limited ; so as to give them a well- 
defined domain of their own, with a sovereignty of 
their own and a responsibility of their own without, 
however, severing them entirely from the rest of the 
world. It is as though nature had devised this trick 
to bring forth better results and spur its creatures on 
to use their utmost efforts in a struggle for exist- 
ence. 

The main fact of man's psychical activity is the 
continuity of his soul, for this is the ultimate basis 
for the identity of a man's personality through all the 
changes of his development. The continuity and 
identity of each soul are conditions which beget the 
feeling of responsibility, and thus force upon man 
the necessity of moral conduct. 

The first questions of psychology are the Whence 
and Whither of the human soul; and we must under- 
stand their significance in order to be able to answer 
the main questions of life, "What shall we do? How 
shall we act? Which aim shall we pursue?" 

The continuity of man's soul-life is not limited to 
the span of time that lies between birth and death; 
it extends beyond the boundary line of individual 
existence, and links the after of each single person to 



The Philosophers 247 

the lives of his ancestors and contemporaries, as well 
as to the generations to come. 

It is not impossible to comprehend the nature of 
man's soul, to trace its Whence, and to point out its 
Whither; and we trust that when a man has gained 
an insight into the relation of his own being to the 
general life of the race, he will think with greater 
reverence of the past and with more consideration 
for the future. It will make him judicious in what- 
ever he undertakes and will serve him as a mariner's 
compass on his journey over the stormy ocean of 
time. * * "''^ 

Before the comprehension of the true nature of 
the soul, birth as an absolute beginning vanishes; 
and so does death as an absolute annihilation. We 
learn to recognize the intimate interconnection of 
ourselves with the life of the distant past as well as 
with the life of the ages to come. He who attains to 
this height lives on the summit of existence and 
breathes the air of immortality. His soul has arisen 
into the domain of the superindividual life; death 
has no sting for him; he has conquered the ills that 
flesh is heir to ; and he looks upon the world with the 
eye of divine enlightenment. In him deity has 
become incarnate. 

CARDINAL BANTANDIER t t t .^ 

Of all the proofs of an after-life, the one that has 
always appealed to me, and the one against which I 



^ 



■» 



248 Proofs of Life After Death 

never saw a serious argument used, is the moral 
"argument," or to better express it, an argument of 
metaphysical order. 

Every sin deserves a punishment and every deed 
of virtue must bear its reward. However, we see 
that on this earth the reverse takes place in most 
cases; therefore there must be an after-life in which 
this metaphysical equilibrium is re-established. To 
say that one finds the reward for a good deed in the 
deed itself is an Utopia, and that a bad one is pun- 
ished by remorse, is a falsehood. Besides, remorse 
admits of this after-life in which the v/icked sees that 
he may be punished for his sins on this earth. 

This is what, in my opinion, proves by demonstra- 
tion an after-life, independently of all dogmas or 
beliefs. 

DR. W. F. WARREN t t t 

I firmly believe in "God, Freedom and Immor- 
tality;" but in my judgment any attempt to set 
forth the logical grounds of the belief in any one of 
the three, either in an exhaustive manner or in a 
manner determining the relative worth of the evi- 
dences in favor of any one of the three, must ever be 
vain and futile. Such beliefs are not born of ratioci- 
nations (reasonings). 

A. P. SINNETT t t t t 

At death the three lower principles — the body, its 
mere physical vitality, and its astral counterpart — 



The Philosophers 249 

are finally abandoned by that which really is man 
himself, and the four higher principles escape into 
that world immediately above our own; above our 
own, that is, in the order of spirituality; not above it 
at all, but in it and of it as regards real locality — 
the astral plane, or Kama loca, according to a very 
familiar Sanscrit expression. Here a division takes 
place between the two duads, which the four higher 
principles include.^ 

^ >|c ^ ;j5 

The casual occurrence of phenomena linking our 
physical perceptions with the unseen world has 
kindled an ardent enthusiasm for inquiry along the 
line of investigation thus pointed out, but the laws of 
Nature affecting the vast realm of spiritual existence 
are far too complicated to be discovered from an 
observation of the phenomena, of a relatively nar- 
row subdivision of that realm, brought within our 
cognizance almost exclusively, by casual and irregu- 
lar occurrences of the kind referred to. 

It is only with the help of esoteric science — the 
accumulated experience of a great school of inquir- 
ers, devoting faculties of the highest kind, for a long 
series of ages, to the exploration of spiritual mys- 
teries — that a sufficiently wide view of Nature can be 
obtained to embrace the apparently disorderly phe- 
nomena of the astral world — the first beyond the 
physical frontier — in all-sufficing generalizations 



1 See "Esoteric Rndilliism. 



250 Proofs of Life After Death 

that cover the whole scheme of spiritual evolution. 

These far-reaching and magnificent conceptions 
of Nature should not only recommend themselves, 
when properly understood, to minds that have 
shrunk from crude conclusions based on the imper- 
fect data of modern spiritual observation in the 
West, but should also be recognized by modern spir- 
itualists themselves as calculated to purify and 
expand their own doctrines, and guard them from 
liability to underrate the grandeur of the region into 
which they have partly penetrated, by relying, for its 
interpretation, too confidently on experiences gath- 
ered at its threshold. 

For the theosophic teaching, which has been too 
hastily resented by some spiritualists who have con- 
ceived it hostile to their own acquired knowledge, 
will be discovered, on a closer examination, to 
include these experiences, and only to disconcert 
some of the conclusions derived from them. 

In esoteric science, as in microscopy, the applica- 
tion of higher and higher powers will always con- 
tinue to reveal a growing wealth of detail; and the 
sketch of an organism that appeared satisfactory 
enough when its general proportions were first dis- 
cerned, is betrayed to be almost worse than insuf- 
ficient when a number of previously unsuspected 
minutiae are brought to notice. 

It is already indicated that the dissolution of the 
human principles after death, though one cannot 



The Philosophers 251 

help speaking of the process as one of dispersion, is 
not actually a mechanical separation of parts, nor 
even a process analogous to the chemical dissolu- 
tion of a compound body into elements on the same 
plane of matter. The discussion of the process as if 
it were a mechanical separation was represented 
from the first as "a rough way of dealing with the 
matter," and was adopted for the sake of emphasiz- 
ing the transition of consciousness from one prin- 
ciple to another which goes on in the astral world 
after death. This transition of consciousness is, in 
fact, the struggle between the higher and lower 
duad. 

The struggle just referred to may be regarded as 
an oscillation of consciousness between the two 
duads; and when the return of consciousness to the 
lower principles, during this struggle, is stimulated 
and encouraged by converse with still living entities 
on the earth plane, with the help of mediumship, the 
proper spiritual growth of the entity in Kama loca 
(the psychic world) is, to that extent, perhaps to a 
very considerable extent, retarded. It is this con- 
sideration which may, in a greater degree than any 
other, account for the disapproval with which the 
adepts of occult science regard the active practice of 
spiritualistic intercourse with departed human 
beings. Such intercourse, though dictated from this 
side by the purest affection, may seriously retard and 



252 Proofs of Life After Death 

embarrass the spiritual development of those who 
have gone in advance of us. 

It is recognized that intercourse between hving 
human beings gifted with a very elevated sort of 
mediumship, or spiritual clairvoyance, and departed 
friends with whom they have been closely united in 
sympathy during life, is possible on the higher spir- 
itual plane, after such persons have passed through 
the struggle of Kama loca and have been completely 
spiritualized. That intercourse may be of a more 
subtle kind that can readily be realized by reference 
to examples of intercourse on the earth plane, but 
may evidently be none the less exhilarating to the 
higher perceptions. 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON t t t 
The resurrection and the continuance of our 
being is granted. Vv^e carry the pledge of this in our 
breast. I maintain merely that we cannot say in 
v/hat form or in v/hat manner our existence will be 
continued. * * * Man is to live hereafter. That 
the vv'orld is for his education, is the only sane solu- 
tion of the enigma. The planting of a desire indi- 
cates that the gratification of that desire is in the 
constitution of the creature that feels it. The Cre- 
ator keeps His word with us all. What I have seen, 
teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not 
seen. Will you, with vast pains and care, educate 
your children to produce a masterpiece and then 



The Philosophers 253 

shoot them down? * * * On the borders of the 
grave the wise man looks forward with equal elas- 
ticity of mind and hope — and why not, after millions 
of years, on the verge of still newer existence? I 
have known admirable persons, wdthout feeling that 
they exhaust the possibilities of virtue and talent. I 
have seen * ^' * what glories of climate, of sum- 
mer mornings and evenings, of midnight sky! I 
have enjoyed the benefits of all this complex machin- 
ery of arts and civilization and its results of comfort! 
But the Good Power can easily provide me millions 
more. 

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA t t t 

Since the dawn of history, various extraordinary 
phenomena have been recorded as happening among 
human beings. Witnesses are not wanting in mod- 
ern times to attest to the facts of such events, even 
in societies living under the full blaze of modern 
science. The vast mass of such evidence is unre- 
liable, as coming from ignorant, superstitious, or 
fraudulent persons. In many instances the so-called 
miracles are imitations. But what do they imitate? 
It is not the sign of a candid and scientific mind to 
throw overboard anything without proper investi- 
gation. 

Surface scientists, unable to explain the various 
extraordinary mental phenomena, strive to ignore 
their very existence. They are, therefore, more 



254 Proofs of Life After Death 

culpable than those who think that their prayers are 
answered by a being, or beings, above the clouds, or 
than those who believe that their petitions will make 
such beings change the course of the universe. The 
latter have the excuse of ignorance, or at least of a 
false system of education in their childhood, which 
has taught them to depend upon such beings for 
help, and this dependence has now become a part 
of their degenerate nature. The former have no 
such excuse. * * * 

Immortality! What question has been asked a 
greater number of times? what idea has sent men 
more to search the universe for an answer, what 
question is nearer and dearer to the human heart, 
what question is more inseparably connected with 
our existence, than this one, the immortality of the 
human uoul? The best of human kind have 
approached it, the worst of human kind have always 
hoped for it. The interest in the theme has not died, 
nor will it die, so long as human nature exists. 
Various answers have been presented to the world 
by various minds. Thousands, again, in every period 
of history have given up the discussion, and yet the 
question remains fresh as ever. 

Many times in the turmoils and struggles of our 
lives we seem to forget the question; all of a sudden 
someone dies; one, perhaps, whom we loved, one 
near and dear to our hearts is snatched away from 
us. The struggle, the din and turmoil of the world 



The Philosophers 255 

around us cease for a moment, become silent, and 
the soul asks the old question, "What after this?" 

What becomes of the soul? 

It will be sheer nonsense to say it dies. It does 
not end here. 

You cannot take away or add to the universe one 
atom of matter or one foot-pound of force. As such, 
evolution did not come out of zero; then where did 
it come from? It came in involution before. The 
child is the man involved, and the man is the child 
evolved; the seed is the tree involved, and the tree is 
the seed evolved. All the possibilities of life are in 
the germ. * * * 

What is destruction? Here is a glass. I throw it 
on the ground, and it breaks to pieces. What 
becomes of it? It becomes fine. What is destruc- 
tion? The gross becoming fine. The elements, the 
particles, the components, the materials, the causes 
are combined, and become this effect called the 
glass. They go back to their causes, and this is what 
is meant by destruction — going back to the cause. 
What is the effect? The cause manifested. * * * 
What becomes of the effect then? It is the same as 
the cause, only taking a different form, a different 
composition. But the question of immortality is not 
settled here. What have we got? We get this, that 
everything in this universe is indestructible. 

It is very good to say there is no destruction for 
any force. But all the forces that we see are com- 



256 Proofs of Life After Death 

binations, and all the forms that we see are combina- 
tions. This form is a composition of several 
component parts, and so every force that we see is 
similarly composite. Everything that is composed 
must sooner or later get back to its component 
parts. Whatever in this universe is the result of the 
combination of matter or force, whatever is the 
result of combination, must sooner or later get back 
to its components. 

Soul is not a force; neither is it thought. It is the 
manufacturer of thought, but not thought; it is the 
manufacturer of the body, but not the body. Why 
so? We see that the body cannot be the soul. Why? 
Because it is not intelligent. A dead man is not 
intelligent, or a piece of flesh in a butcher's shop. 
* * * Self is the illuminator, and the mind is an 
instrument in its hands. This Self of man is not the 
body and it is not thought. It cannot be a com- 
pound. 

The Self of man or soul goes beyond the law, and 
therefore must be free, cannot be any composition, 
or the result of any composition, or the efifect of any 
cause. It will never die, because death is going back 
to the component parts, and that which was never a 
compound can never die. 

We are now treading on finer and finer ground. 
Some of you will perhaps be frightened; we are 
treading on very delicate ground. We have seen 
that this Self, being beyond the little universe of 



The Philosophers 257 

matter and force and thought, is a simple (not a 
compound) and as a simple it cannot die, neither 
can it live. That which does not die, cannot live, 
also. So, what is death? The obverse, and life the 
reverse of the same coin. Life is another name for 
death, and death for life. One particular mode of 
manifestation is what we call life ; another particular 
mode of manifestation of the same thing is what we 
call death. The soul of man is one part of the cosmic 
energy that exists, one part of God. We now come 
to find that it is beyond life and death. You were 
never born, and you will never die. 

What is this birth and death that we see? This 
belongs to the body, because the soul is omnipres- 
ent. * * * Because there was no birth; how 
could there be any death? You are the omnipres- 
ent beings of the universe. * * * What can 
frighten you? If the suns come down, the moons 
crumble into dust, systems after systems are hurled 
into annihilation; what is that to you? Stand as a 
rock ; you are indestructible. 

DR. CHAS. HEBARD t t t 

To begin an answer to your question, I ask 
another. V/hat is life? My answer to this would be: 
It is the manifestation of spirit through matter. But 
when what we term death has come to us, to my 
mind it is but the entering into another plane of con- 
sciousness. We all, or many of us, have dreams 



258 Proofs of Life After Death 

which are as real and follow as connected trains of 
thought and action as when awake. Yes, and better 
thought, that we would gladly reproduce while 
awake, but the brain's molecules have not been used 
in their production, and consequently have left but 
a faint impress on its substance, so we are unable to 
recall it in its perfection ; and yet we know it to have 
been most real. But perhaps the feeling that this is I 
and can be nothing else who experiences all these 
various states is what is most convincing to me that 
I shall not cease to think and act when I put ofif this 
body. 

IMMANUEL KANT t t t 

The death of the body may indeed be the end of 
the sensational use of our mind, but only the begin- 
ning of the intellectual use. The body would thus 
be, not the cause of our thinking, but merely a con- 
dition restrictive thereof, and although essential to 
a sensuous and animal consciousness, it may be 
regarded as an impeder of our pure spiritual life. 

At some future day it will be proved — I cannot 
say when and where — that the human soul is, while 
in earth-life, already in an uninterrupted communi- 
cation with those living in another world; that the 
human soul can act upon those beings, and receive, 
in return, impressions of them without being con- 
scious of it in the ordinary personality. 

It would be a blessing if the state of things in the 



The Philosophers 259 

other world and the conditions under which an inter- 
change of the two worlds may take place — per- 
ceived by us in a speculative manner — would not 
only be theoretically exhibited, but practically estab- 
lished by real and generally acknowledged facts thus 
observed. 

Philosophy, who never fears to compromise her- 
self by examining all kinds of foolish questions, is 
often much embarrassed when she encounters on her 
march, certain facts she dares not doubt, yet will 
not believe for fear of ridicule. This is the case with 
ghost stories. In short, there is no reproach to 
which philosophy is more sensible than that of cre- 
dulity, or the suspicion of any connection with vul- 
gar superstitions. Those who cheaply assume the 
name of savants, and insist on receiving the priv- 
ileges due to learned men, mock at whatever (being 
as inexplicable to the savant as to the ignorant) 
places both on the same level. That is why ghost 
stories are always listened to and well received in 
private, but pitilessly disavowed in public. We may 
take it for granted that no academy of science will 
ever choose such a subject for discussion, not 
because every one of its members is fully persuaded 
of the silliness and falseness of all these narratives, 
but because the law of prudence has wisely put a 
limit to the examination of such questions. Ghost 
stories will always have those who believe in them in 



26o Proofs of Life After Death 

secret, and will always be received in public with an 
incredulity of good form. 

For my own part, ignorant as I am of the way in 
which the human spirit enters the world and the 
way in which it goes out of it, I dare not deny the 
truth of many of such narratives that are in circula- 
tion. By a reserve, however, which to some may 
appear singular, I permit myself to hold in doubt 
each in particular, and yet to believe in them when 
all taken together. 

WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN t t 

I shall not believe that this light is extinguished. 
If the Father deigns to touch with divine power the 
cold and pulseless heart of the buried acorn, and 
make it to burst forth from its prison walls, will He 
leave neglected in the earth the soul of man, who 
was made in the image of his Creator? If He stoops 
to give to the rosebush, whose withered blossoms 
float upon the breeze, the sweet assurance of another 
springtime, will He withhold the words of hope 
from the sons of men when the frosts of winter 
come? If matter, mute and inanimate, though 
changed by the forces of Nature into a multitude of 
forms, can never die, will the imperial spirit of man 
sufifer annihilation after it has paid a brief visit, like 
a royal guest, to this tenement of clay? 

Rather let us believe that He, who in His appar- 
ent prodigality wastes not the raindrop, the blade of 



The Philosophers 261 

grass, or the evening's sighing zephyr, but makes 
them all to carry out His plans, has given immor- 
tality to the mortal. 

REV. DR. NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS 

Science makes much of the cUmatic changes that 
have befallen our planet. It tells us that Labrador, 
the land of ice and snow, was once a tropic realm, a 
wilderness of fruits and flowers. But some disturb- 
ance gave our earth a new inclination toward the 
sun, and rays that had been perpendicular and pow- 
erful became slanting and feeble. Then a chill stole 
into the air, and the land that had never known frost 
was soon sheeted o'er with snow and ice, while the 
Amazon, hitherto the home of the iceberg, passed 
into warmth and perpetual summer. The climatic 
change that has passed over that physical world may 
well interpret for man the larger fact that the soul 
stands in a new relation to death and dying, so that 
summer reigns where once winter ruled> * * * 
The philosophy that pictured death as a monster, 
is itself death-struck and dying. Science, that once 
clipped the wings of faith, is now learning to soar 
and sing. If land is not yet sighted, we sail through 
a summer sea, midst drifting boughs whose leaves 
have not yet withered; the birds that fly overhead 
belong to climes near, though still unseen; the 
air laden with perfume, foretells the continent that 
lies before and lures us on. * * * 

1 See Foretokens of Immortality: Revell's. 



262 Proofs of Life After Death 

Wisdom is not discerned by foolishness, nor music 
by deafness. The melody is one-half in the singer's 
voice; the other half is in the cultured ear. Beauty 
is but half canvas; its complement is the refined 
vision. 

Man carries very imperfect instruments for know- 
ing. He is but a seed to be grave-planted. That 
would be but an ignoble immortality and an impov- 
erished futurity that man could understand. Even 
the poet, the seer and sage discern but hints and 
gleams of the infinite truth and beauty awaiting all. 
The "I" gives unity to our knowledge and experi- 
ences. Self-identity gathers up all past life. Having 
survived the changes of many brains and half a score 
of physical bodies, the soul begins to nourish the 
hope that it may survive the body altogether, cast- 
ing it off like a worn-out garment. 

Reason finds a foretoken of immortality in the 
contrast between the growth of material things and 
that of the mind. When a tree fulfills leafage, flowers 
and fruit, it touches the limit of its being. Its end is 
fulfilled; growth can achieve nothing more. But all 
this has its absolute contradiction in the mind. Not 
even of the ripest scholar can it be said that reason 
has touched its limit and exhausted its capacity. 
Contrariwise, each new discovery, each new inven- 
tion, does but prophesy other achievements and 
nobler acquirements. To-day's goal is only the 
starting point of a new journey to-morrow. * * '^ 



The Philosophers 263 

A certain irritating force seems to foretell immor- 
tality. All growth is through a kind of hidden 
stimulus. When growth begins, restlessness over- 
takes the child. Quietude becomes impossible. To 
condemn the little creature to a chair is a form of 
exquisite cruelty. Nature needs fresh blood in the 
extremities for her building processes, and secures it 
by pricking the child until it runs and jumps. When 
the period of growth is passed, the restlessness also 
passes. Similarly, after periods of sickness, with con- 
valescence comes restlessness, and this restlessness 
compels the exercise needed for health and strength. 
But with old age comes quietude; the easy-chair 
foretells the end. 

A like irritation exists in the mind. A noble dis- 
content inaugurates each new epoch for man. The 
soul chafes against its barriers. Sometimes the 
world seems like a tiny garret on a hot August night, 
and the heart will smother unless it finds breathing- 
room in a larger world. * * * As the child's 
restlessness stimulates exercise, growth and matur- 
ity, so the aspirations of the heart are preparations 
for the prophecies of an immortal destiny. 

To-day scientists are interpreting anew the 
instincts in animals and men. Instincts are nature's 
prophecies foretelling coming events. * * * ■\Ye 
must also reckon with that faculty* in man looking 
forward to immortality. In vain we ransack all 
nature for a single instance in which nature's 



264 Proofs of Life After Death 

instincts have deceived insect or bird. Does nature 
use so great skill in guiding beasts, but become a 
blunderer in guiding man? 

He who meets the bird's wing with air that bears 
it up, the fish's fin with water that yields to its move- 
ment; he who meets the eye with sunlight and 
beauty, the ear with sweetness and melody, hunger 
with bread, and thirst with flowing springs, hath 
filled the soul also with hunger for immortal life, 
with thirst for eternal love. At times this hunger 
becomes so great that man could stretch up his 
hands and ''eat the planets like small cakes;" his 
thirst is so deep that the earth itself is but a small cup 
for the soul to drink in. Did God give man this 
infinite hunger only to find afterward that His gen- 
erosity involved Him in penury, so making it impos- 
sible to furnish man with bread wherewith to satisfy 
his hunger? This would make the Infinite to be 
either poverty stricken or a moral monster. Here 
millions die in ignorance and millions in sin. The joy 
of one heart is marred by the anguish of another; the 
wealth and beauty of one street by the pathetic pov- 
erty and shame of another; the music of one voice is 
destroyed by the moans of another. * * * 

Human life is a colossal enigma without immor- 
tality. The hypothesis of a future life alone can 
explain man's troubles and solve his mysteries. The 
inequalities of society bafile all intellects. Bad men 
rise to the throne, the good are forced to the wall. 



The Philosophers 265 

Tyrants dwell in kings' palaces, heroes starve in dun- 
geons. Often vice wears purple and fine linen; 
sometimes virtue eats crusts and wears rags. When 
Dante was denied his vine and fig tree, wicked 
princes drove in chariots from palaces in the city to 
villas in the country. Why is it that the heroes of 
liberty and religion have been hunted like partridges 
upon the mountains? Tiberius flung his victims 
over the precipice into the sea. Nero lighted up his 
garden with blazing martyrs. But these tyrants 
lived on to the end in splendor, and died on soft 
rose-beds, as did the murderers of Socrates. Mean- 
while, where are the patriots of liberty whose lives 
were one long struggle against tyranny and oppres- 
sion ? Where are your fathers who sleep at Shiloh 
and Gettysburg, where the hillsides are all billowy 
with graves? What about that mound in the forests 
of Africa where Livingstone fell? If death ends all, 
what compensation had Savonarola and William the 
Silent and Lincoln? * * * 

To the suggestion of poet and philosopher must 
be added the thought of the scientist. If the time 
was when science doubted or denied, now science 
has begun to soar with seraphs and to see with 
saints. Because its instruments are the microscope 
and the scalpel, physical demonstration is impossible, 
and science can neither disprove nor affirm. Yet 
daily, evolution is uixfolding new suggestions and 
discovering strange analogies and intimations of a 



266 Proofs of Life After Death 

life beyond death. The biologists have traced for 
us the story of the ascent of the human body. For 
ages hath Nature been toiling upon the perfection 
of the hand and the foot and the ear and the eye, 
and these are now well nigh perfect. At last science 
affirms that on earth there will never be a higher 
creation than man. 

The goal toward which Nature hath worked hath 
been reached, and in developing the mind, Nature 
is confronted with a stupendous crisis — the arrest of 
the body. Once man strengthened his eyes by focus- 
ing them upon stars distant and great, and upon 
crystals near and tiny. Now the field-glass for the 
distant ship and the microscope for the tiny crystal, 
have arrested the growth of the eye. Once man 
hurled his spear or held his plow. Now the devel- 
opments of tools have caused the trip-hammer to 
succeed the arm and bicycle to outrun the foot. The 
mind hath invented a thousand instruments that 
now fulfill the duties of the body and hath arrested 
its growth, Herbert Spencer named Romanes as 
the disciple who had most thoroughly studied the 
problems of the mind from the view-point of evolu- 
tion, and mentioned John Fiske as the ablest expo- 
nent of the general principles of his synthetic 
philosophy. But Romanes, moving on from higher 
to higher, came at last to believe that the evolution 
of the mind involved the final outgrowth of the 
body and necessitated the casting it off as a physical 



The Philosophers 267 

clog no longer helpful. John Fiske also affirms that 
immortality is the one mighty goal toward which 
Nature has been working from the very beginning 
of life. * * * 

He who goes down into the grave is as one who 
goes down into a great ship to sail away to some 
rich and historic clime. But a divine form stands 
upon the prow, a divine hand holds the helm, a 
divine chart marks the voyage, a divine mind knows 
where the distant harbor is. In perfect peace the 
voyager may sing: 

"For though from out our bourne of time and place 
The Hood may bear me far, 
I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
When I have crest the bar." 



Lamattine. 

Ftee Tzanslation From the Fzench.^ 

Fizst zMeditations on Immoztalit-j;. 

Par tne, should I see in the celestial plains 

The stars shooting from their fixed course 

In the fields of ether ^ one crushed by the other. 

Traveling at random through the terrified skies; 

Should I hear the Earth groan and split itself 

Should I see its globe wandering and solitary , 

Weeping over destroyed man ^ floating far from the suns. 

Lose itself in the fields of eternal night; 

And when, alone, I should be standing, 

Surrounded by Chaos, Death, Darkness; alone. 

Last witness of these mournful scenes. 

In spite of my terror, Being infallible and good, I should hope 

in Thee, 
And certain of the return on the destroyed worlds 
Of the eternal light, I should still wait for Thee. 



Addzessing Death. 

When my tired eye is closed to the light 

Thou contest to overflow tny vision with a purer day; 

And near Thee, leaning on m.yface. 

Dreaming on a tomb, hope opefts to me a more beautiful world. 

Come, then, come loosen my corporeal chains! 

Come, open my prison; come, loan me Thy wings; 

Why delayest Thou? Appear; that I at last may throw myself 

Toward that unknown Being, my Principle and my end. 



1 See Pages 211—213. 

(268) 



i 



Pazt IV 



The Spiritualists 



Ghosts I There are nigh a thousand million of them 
walking the earth openly at noontide; some half hun- 
dred have vanished from it, some half hundred have 
arisen in it, ere thy watch tick one. 

— Carlyle. 



"At some future day it will he proved — I cannot say 

when and where — that the human soul is, while in 
earth-life, already in uninterrupted communication 
with those living in another world; that the human 
soul can act upon those beings, and receive, in return, 
impressions of them without being conscious of it in 
the ordinary personality." 

— Immanuel Kant. 



(270) 



"It (Spiritualism) further demonstrates, by direct 
evidence as conclusive as the nature of the case admits, 
that the so-called dead are still alive — that our friends 
are often with us, though unseen, and can give direct 
proof of a future life, which so many crave, hut for 
want of which so many live and die in anxious doubt." 
— Alfred Russel Wallace, F. R, S. 



(271) 



Oft may the spirits of the dead descend 
To watch the silent slumbers of a friend; 
To hover round his evening-walk unseen, 
And hold sweet converse on the dusky green; 
To hail the spot where tirst their friendship grew, 
And heaven and nature opened to their view! 
Oft, when he trims his cheerful hearth, and sees 
A smiling circle emulous to please; 
There may these gentle guests delight to dwell. 
And bless the scene they loved in life so well! 

— Rogers.. 



(272) 



SPIRITUALISM. 

It IS said that under Torquemada and his suc- 
cessor Diego Deza, ten thousand persons — so-called 
heretics against the Catholic church — ^were put to 
death by burning at the stake. That was in Spain; 
she stood at the head of the nations of the earth in 
those days and carried the "torch" of civilization. 
To-day, under Pope Leo XIII, a gentle, upright, 
noble, and scholarly man, Catholicism numbers a 
quarter of a billion happy, hopeful and educated 
devotees. So we will say: there is Catholicism, and 
Catholicism. 

So, also, we will say: there is Spiritualism, and 
Spiritualism; there is the false and the true in all 
things, 

Torquemada was no worse, possibly not nearly 
so culpable, as Diss de Barr, or a host and myriad of 
other vampires, bats, harpies and ghouls that to-day 
prey upon the childish credulity of the millions of 
unfortunate ones that seek to look beyond the hori- 
zon, or strive to pierce the veil. The difference be- 
tween Prof. Alfred Russel Wallace, Harrison D. 
Barrett, Cora L. V. Richmond and William T. 
Stead on the one hand; and many, or most of the 
"professional mediums" on the other, is infinitely 

(273) 



274 Proofs of Life After Death 

greater than that Jaetween the grand and lovable old 
man Leo XIII and the wholesale murderer and 
inquisitor, Torquemada. 

Spiritualism in its higher and philosophic aspect 
is a religion, in its phenomenal aspect it is a science; 
and that science now happily goes under the tech- 
nical title of psychical research. If all its phenomena 
were traced to the mind, conscious or sub-conscious, 
of living persons as the cause; or to forces, other 
than those caused by discarnate beings, still Spiritu- 
alism as against materialism, would stand or fall with 
the final solution of the question of the immortality 
of the soul. 

Fifty-five years ago, scientific men like Professor 
Robert Hare, of Philadelphia; James J. Mapes, of 
New York; and later, Alfred R. Wallace, Professor 
Crookes and Mr. Varley, of England; Camille Flam- 
marion, of France; Professor Zollner, of Germany, 
and scores of other scientists of note, investigated 
the physical phenomena of Spiritualism and have 
uniformly declared that there is no law of material 
science with which they are familiar that can explain 
these phenomena; and that they have recourse only 
to the solution always claimed by the manifesting 
intelligence, viz: That the source of the phenomena 
is disembodied spirits working through means and 
methods entirely unknown in any human science. 

"As the result of the experiments in investigating 
the phenomena of Spiritualism, made by so many 



spiritualism 275 

eminent scientific men in all parts of the world," 
says Mrs. Richmond, "there has been but one con- 
clusion by scientific men, viz: that the cause of the 
phenomena is immanent (resides in} the phenomena; 
that both are demonstrated beyond the possibility of 
a doubt; and that to investigate the physical, mental 
or intuitional phenomena of Spiritualism separately 
from the whole subject with a view of ascertaining 
another cause than that of the action of spirits, is 
like investigating the phenomena of the light of day 
with a view of finding another source of light than 
the sun. 

The essential difference between the spiritualist 
and the psychical researcher is well formulated by 
the spiritualists themselves. We quote Mrs. Rich- 
mond again: 

"From the very first manifestation of the phenom- 
ena of Spiritualism to the last, the cause or source of 
the phenomena has been as manifest as the phe- 
nomena. By as intelligent methods as language, 
signals, or any established system of communication 
between mind and mind in human states, these spir- 
itual intelligences have been recognized. Invariably 
they have declared themselves to be individual spirits 
who once lived in earth forms, accompanying the 
declaration by evidences of personal identity entirely 
separated from and independent of any individual in 
the earth form at the time of the manifestation. The 
cause of the phenomena is, therefore, so clearly iden- 



276 Proofs of Life After Death 



I 

I 
I 



\ 



tical with the results as to make a scientific investiga- 
tion, on the basis of discovering a new cause, entirely 
impertinent. To ignore the knowledge already 
gained is totally unscientific as well as illogical. 
Therefore, all investigations of Spiritualism de novo 
(from the beginning), claiming, a priori that the 
source of the manifestations is still unknown, is 
equivalent to ignoring the whole subject. ■ 

"Spiritualists are by no means tenacious as to 
terms, and I am perfectly willing to state that to 
those who pursue the investigation along the lines of 
exact science there is the fullest appreciation of their 
work: but the majority of spiritualists, in viewing 
the whole subject, consider that it is beyond the 
realm of exact science and within the realm of 
revealed or intuitional knowledge " 

It will be interesting to note that the two chief 
exponents of Spiritualism in the United States, Har- 
rison D. Barrett, editor of "The Banner of Light," 
the oldest and foremost spiritualistic publication in 
the world, and Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond, the 
noted lecturer, both confine themselves largely In 
their contributions to this symposium, to the philo- 
sophical aspect of Spiritualism. 

For many millions, Spiritualism has bridged the 
chasm, has spanned the gulf, has solved the question 
— of life after death. 



I 



The Spiritualists. 

CORA L V. RICHMOND t t t 

I feel greatly honored in being associated by you 
with eminent thinkers on the subject of all others 
that I regard the most important to the human race, 
and upon the real solution of which depends the 
entire value of human life, namely: the evidence of 
the Immortality of the Soul (and, therefore, the 
personal identity of the spirit after death). 

I regard the evidences of future continued exist- 
ence as threefold: 

First, The evidence of intuition, a priori knowl- 
edge from within the soul, evidenced by the long- 
ing for immortality. 

Second, The evidences of Inspiration: — Revealed 
Religion and accompanying "Spiritual Gifts." 

Third, The evidences of Manifestations, variously 
known in the world to-day as "Spiritual," "Psychic," 
or by whatever terms the great accumulation of 
modern facts and thoughts through investigation on 
this subject is known. 

With your permission, I will take the last named 
classification first. This must essentially be the evi- 
dence received from what is known in the world as 

(277) 



278 Proofs of Life After Death 

"Modem Spiritualism." A movement, manifestly, 
originating in the unseen realm, and having for its 
instrumentalities for manifestation humble children 
and people of neither worldly position nor scientific 
eminence. Yet the manifestations so occurring 
challenged in the first two decades of their existence 
the inquiry of such minds as Dr. Alfred Russel Wal- 
lace, Sir William Crookes and Mr. Varley, of Eng- 
land; Prof. Robert Hare, Prof. J. J. Mapes, Hon. 
J. W. Edmonds, Prof. William Denton, and scores 
of others eminent in letters and science. The result 
being that in every instance of careful investigation 
these men became convinced of the spiritual (non- 
human) origin of the phenomena, and that the 
"Mediums" were instruments for conveying the evi- 
dence of a future life of personal identity to man. 
During the last twenty years, and notably the 
decade just passed, another generation of scientific 
men have taken up this investigation, arriving at 
similar results. By 'far the strongest argument in 
this connection is that certain phenomena do occur 
in the presence, but not by the co-operation — vol- 
untary or otherwise — of the "Media" or "Sensi- 
tives." That in every instance the claim is that the 
message proceeds from a Spirit who was formerly a 
denizen of this earth in mortal form : That in large 
majority of cases this personal identity is proven by 
such facts as would be taken in a court of justice, 
or in any scientific j-esearch. That theology, sci- 



The Spiritualists 279 

ence and ordinary human investigations have failed 
utterly to successfully account for the phenomena in 
any other manner than that claimed in the manifes- 
tations themselves. That a stupendous movement 
has been the result, pressing the world forward to 
admit a demonstration of future existence entirely 
separated from religious or theological fanaticism or 
excitement, and including physical, mental and psy- 
chical results of a most astonishing nature. 

To the reasoning mind that which is in the world 
to-day under the name of Spiritualism (having as its 
outgrowth psychic research and kindred names) is, 
without any other proof, quite sufficient to establish 
the evidence of a continued existence of the individ- 
ual spirit beyond the change called death. 

Second among the evidences of immortality are 
the "Inspirations" of every age. Not only in the 
sacred books: — Vedas, Shastas, Korans and Bibles 
of all nations, — but in the visions of seers and 
prophets, and the teachings of sages, and of people, 
who in passing away from earth, have visions. In 
all such visions the Spirit and Angels appear in 
human form, and many times bear the countenances 
of friends who are recognized by the seers. This 
almost universal (in point of human history) experi- 
ence cannot be ignored, especially when accom- 
panied by such evidence as the existence of similar 
gifts in the world to-day. A repetition of the "Gifts 
of the Spirit" under the distinct ministration cf 



28o Proofs of Life After Death 

individual intelligences that have passed from earth 
completes a chain of proof extending into every age 
and found to have existed among all people. Phil- 
osophers, as well as "prophets" and "seers," have 
taught a future existence; among which the teach- 
ings of Plato and his teacher, Socrates, are too well 
known to require other than the following well 
known quotation from the dialogue between Plato 
and Cato: 

"It must he so, Plato, thou reasonest well, 
Else zvhy this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
This longing after immortality f 
Or whence this secret dread, this inward horror, 
Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 
Back on herself and startles at destruction? 
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 
'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter. 
And intimates Eternity to man." 

This leads to a return to the first proposition: The 
evidence of intuition or the faculty through which 
the mind is enabled to perceive the evidence given. 
Nature — including soul-nature — never stultifies 
itself. The faculty to perceive anything (or thought) 
presumes the existence of the thing (or thought) to 
be perceived. The existence of sight presupposes 
something to see and light by which to see it; the 
same with every sense. Yet we well know that every 
sense would be valueless but for the cognition of 
the mind. Ability or faculty to cognate spiritual 



The Spiritualists. 281 

existence — mind separate from the body — must be 
conclusive evidence of such an existence. And I 
maintain that the possession of such a faculty or per- 
ception, with all its correlated faculties is prima facie 
evidence of a future life, even if there had never been 
a traveler returning from that bourne. But in this 
utilitarian and "practical" age men turn to the evi- 
dence of the senses and of the mind, and we must 
return to proposition number three, as being that 
upon which rests in modern thought the evidence 
of a future life. Facts being "stubborn things," 
science, philosophy and religion bend ultimately to 
the facts that illustrate the ever existent Truths of 
the universe. 

My own experiences, extending from the age of 
ten years to the present time, of open vision and 
communion with the spiritual realm, place this sub- 
ject beyond the plane of possible doubt, and I must 
claim to write as one who has knowledge of a future 
life for each individual human spirit, and, therefore, 
of the Immortality of the Soul. 

DR. J. M. PEEBLES t t t 

Your favor reached me yesterday, and I hasten to 
reply. You see by date of this that I am in Mel- 
bourne, Australia, spending the winter here to avoid 
the intense cold of our American northlands. This is 
my fourth journey around the world. 



282 Proofs of Life After Death 

In regard to Spiritualism, or the demonstration of 
a future life through the phenomena of Spiritualism, 
I confess that I hardly know where to commence, 
having been a spiritualist for over fifty years, and 
having been personally acquainted with fully three 
thousand mediums, no two of which having pre- 
cisely the same spiritual gifts, qualitatively and quan- 
titatively. The phenomena appearing through many 
of these with my own psychic mediumship, gives me 
a positive demonstration of a future conscious exist- 
ence. To me, belief has been merged into knowl- 
edge, and faith into fruition. I walk and talk almost 
daily with the residents of the unseen world. 

WM. T. STEAD t t t 

Of immortality I say nothing. That cannot, from 
the nature of things, be demonstrated. But of a life 
after death — a life in which those who live on this 
side of the grave retain their identity in the other 
world — that may yet be demonstrated by tests as. 
exact and as conclusive as any of which the science 
of psychology admits. The evidence and experi- 
ments of the Psychical Research Society have 
already shattered, for one at least of our acutest 
scientific minds, all purely materialistic hypotheses. 
When dust returns to dust and ashes to ashes, the 
ego lives on; the personal identity, the conscious- 
ness of the individual, does not seem to be even 
momentarily impaired. It does not seem to be too 



The Spiritualists 283 

bold a speculation to believe that the patient meth- 
ods of inductive science, the careful examination of 
evidence, and the repeatedly renewed experiments 
of investigators will before long completely re-estab- 
lish the failing belief in the reality of the world 
beyond the grave, and leave us with as little room 
for doubt as to the existence of the spirit after death 
as we have now for doubting the existence of Behr- 
ing Straits or of the Pyramids. 

It is possible that this bringing of life and immor- 
tality to light, or at least the establishment of 
the certainty of a future life upon impregnable sci- 
entific foundations, may seem to some by no 
means an unmixed blessing. To many it would 
undoubtedly add a new terror to death. The 
thought of a prolonged existence in a more spir- 
itual sphere where you would witness the work- 
ing out of the dread consequences of the breach 
of laws and of the neglect of responsibilities, is 
often anything but attractive to the mind of man. 
To rest, and that forever, even in the grave, seems 
sometimes the boon of boons. (The human mind 
cannot conceive of profound rest or sleep with- 
out its accompaniment or complement, refreshing 
awakening ; and the more profound the rest, the 
more refreshing the awakening. — Editor.) It would 
seem to be an unattainable one. For if the testi- 
monies of many credible witnesses may be believed, 
there is no death. The form — the vesture — perishes. 



284 Proofs of Life After Death 

but the soul, the ego, the essential principle, lives 
on. Revelation has always affirmed this. 

It seems as if science were once more to vindicate 
her claim to be regarded as the handmaid of relig- 
ion by affording conclusive demonstration of its 
reality. Whether we like this or dislike it is imma- 
terial. The supreme question is. What is the truth? 
And whatever drawbacks there may be to the theory 
of the future life, there is at least one enormous com- 
pensating advantage in knowing that the accounts 
between man and his Maker are not finally closed 
when he ceases to breathe on earth, and that the 
Almighty has still the infinite expanse of eternity in 
which to vindicate the justice of His dealings with 
every human soul. 

(Mr Stead, the founder and editor of "The Review 
of Reviews," a man of intense activity, a scholar and 
public man of the widest versatility, has, since writ- 
ing the above, become what may be said to be a 
thorough convert to the belief of spiritism. In 
response to the letter of inquiry printed in the pre- 
face to this book, I received from Mr. Stead an 
autograph copy of his little volume — "Letters from 
Julia." This book is composed of a series of com- 
munications received by himself and through his 
own "mediumship" from a deceased friend. In 
speaking of his convictions, he says:) 

"I feel it impossible to resist the conclusion that 

these communications are what they profess to be — 

real letters from the real Julia, who is not dead, but 

gone before, I know, after five years' almost daily 



The Spiritualists 285 

intercourse with her tlirough my automatic hand, 
that I am conversing with an intelligence at least as 
keen as my own, a personality as distinctly defined 
and a friend as true and tender as I have ever known. 
From those who scout the possibility of such a phe- 
nomenon I would merely ask the admission that in 
this case their favorite theory of intentional fraud, at 
least on the part of the medium, is excluded by the 
fact that these messages were written by my own 
right hand, no other visible person being present. 
No one who knows anything of the prejudice that 
exists on the subject will deny that I have no per- 
sonal interest to serve in taking up the exceedingly 
unpopular and much-ridiculed position of a believer 
in the reality of such communications. For years I 
have labored under a serious disadvantage on this 
account in many ways, both private and public. 

"I am well aware that my position in these matters 
will be employed against me, in order to discount 
and discredit everything I may say or do for years 
to come. This is unfortunate, no doubt, but of 
course it cannot be weighed in the balance com- 
pared with the importance of testifying to what I 
believe to be the truth." 

PROF. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 

The ultimate decision of this question, whether in 
the negative or affirmative, is not only of vital inter- 
est to each of us individually, but is calculated, I 



286 Proofs of Life After Death 

believe, to determine the future welfare or misery of 
mankind. If the question should be finally decided 
in the negative — if all men without exception ever 
come to believe that there is no life beyond this life, 
if children are all brought up to believe that the only 
happiness they can ever enjoy will be upon this earth 
— then, it seems to me, that the condition of man 
v/ould be altogether hopeless, because there would 
cease to be any adequate motive for justice, for 
truth, for unselfishness, and no sufficient reason 
could be given to the poor man, to the bad man, or 
to the selfish man why he should not systematically 
seek his own personal welfare at the cost of others. 

The well-being of the race in the distant future^ 
set before us by some philosophers, would not cer- 
tainly influence the majority of men, more especially 
as the universal teaching of science is, that the entire 
race, with the world it inhabits, must sooner or later 
come to an end. "The greatest good to the greatest 
number," that noble ideal of many philosophers, 
would never be admitted as a motive for action b3^ 
those who are seeking their own personal welfare. 
The scofifing question, "What has posterity done for 
us?" which influences many men even now, would 
then be thought to justify universal self-seeking, 
utterly regardless of what might happen to those 
who come afterward. Even now, notwithstanding 
the hereditary influences, the religious belief and 
religious training in which our characters have been 



The SpiriHialisfs 287 

molded, selfishness is far too prevalent. When these 
influences cease altogether, when under total incre- 
dulity, and with no influences whatever leading men 
to self-development as a means of permanent happi- 
ness, the inevitable result will be that might alone 
would make right, and the weakest would always 
and inevitably go to the wall, and that the unbridled 
passions of the strongest and most selfish men 
would dominate the world. 

Such a hell upon earth as would thus be brought 
about will happily never exist, because it would be 
founded upon a falsehood, and because there are 
causes now at work which forbid a disbelief in man's 
spiritual nature, and his continued existence after 
death. h< * * 

In the midst of this present century world of 
thought, a world which is either grossly materialistic 
or pantheistic or idealistic. Modern Spiritualism has 
fallen like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, emphatic- 
ally demonstrating the action of mind without any 
material mind, and the exertion of force without any 
material body, and that by means of a vast amount 
of constantly recurring facts which have forced 
themselves upon all classes — men of science, men of 
business, men of religion. It is in the most material 
epoch of the world's history, in the midst of a society 
which prides itself on discarding all superstition and 
basing its belief on the solid foundation of physical 
science, that this new and unwelcome visitor has 



288 Proofs of Life After Dcaih 

intruded itself and maintained a vigorous existence 
for nearly fifty years; has made its way into every 
civilized country in the world, has an extensive lit- 
erature, a large number of papers and hundreds of 
organized societies, counts its converts by millions in 
all kinds of society, among the crowned heads and 
aristocracy, and those who occupy the highest ranks 
in science, literature and philosophy, as well as 
among the masses, while in hosts of individual cases 
it has done what no religion has been able to do — 
convinced the skeptic and the agnostic and the hard- 
faced materialist of the reality of a spiritual world 
and of a future life. 

Considerable acquaintance with the history and 
literature of this movement — in which I have myself 
taken part for thirty-five years — has failed to show 
me one single case in which any man who, after 
careful inquiry, has become convinced of the truth 
and reality of the spiritual phenomena, has after- 
wards discredited them or regarded them as impos- 
ture or delusion. And it must be remembered that 
as a rule all educated, and especially all scientific 
men, come to the investigation of this subject with a 
very strong prejudice against it, as being almost cer- 
tainly based on credulity and fraud, which they will 
easily detect and expose. This was the frame of 
mind with which the inquiry was begun by Professor 
Hare, the first American chemist of his day; by the 
Hon. Robert Dale Owen, a most intellectual and 



The Spiritualists 289 

philosophical materialist; by Mr. Crookes, one of the 
first chemists of the present age, and by scores of 
others that might be named. These men all devoted 
not a few hours, or days, or even weeks, to a hasty 
examination of the subject, but many years of 
patient inquiry and experiment, with the result in 
every case that the more thoroughly the subject was 
inquired into, the more able and intelligent the 
inquiries, the more seriously did its foundation facts 
and main doctrine become established. 

Its whole course and history, therefore, pro- 
claimed it to be neither imposture nor delusion, nor 
the survival of the beliefs of savages, but a great and 
all-important truth. 

The phenomena may be broadly divided into two 
groups: physical and mental. The former, however, 
as well as the latter, almost always imply the action 
of mind in their production. In the first division we 
have simply physical phenomena, and among which 
must be grouped an immense variety of effects, such 
as sounds of all kinds, from the most delicate tick up 
to blows as loud and vibratory as those produced by 
a sledge hammer, and certainly not produced by 
human agency. Then we have the alteration of the 
weight of bodies, which has often been tested. We 
have the phenomena of articles of various kinds 
being moved without human agency, such as chairs, 
tables and musical instruments. More curious is the 
conveying of bodies to a distance; flowers and fruits 



290 Proofs of Life After Death 

are the most common of these, but also other bodies, 
such as letters and various small objects have been 
conveyed long distances — sometimes several miles. 

Further, we have that curious phenomenon which 
is recorded more or less throughout history, the rais- 
ing or levitation of human bodies into the air and 
sometimes conveying them a considerable distance. 
More remarkable by far than these, because beyond 
all human power to produce, is the tying of knots on 
endless cords, the taking of coins out of sealed 
boxes, and the passage of solid rings over a body far 
too large for them to pass over by any natural 
means. All these things have happened in the pres- 
ence of careful scientists and their assistants; I have 
frequently myself seen, in good light, sticks and 
handkerchiefs pass through a curtain, yet an exam- 
ination of the curtain immediately afterward did not 
show any changes in it whatever. 

Then we have physical phenomena combined 
with mental phenomena, such as direct writing and 
drawing. This is now such a general phenomenon 
that almost everyone may have an opportunity of 
testing for himself. It appears in an infinite variety 
of ways. Papers thrown upon the floor and taken 
up a few minutes afterward are found to be written 
upon; spirit writing comes upon the ceiling in inac- 
cessible places. There is also that which occurs in 
closed slates, and often in the presence and under 
the hand of the person witnessing it. Then there is 



The Spiritualists 291 

a set of phenomena which may be termed musical 
phenomena. Musical instruments are played; some- 
times locked and closed pianos are played. I have 
seen a music box which played and ceased playing at 
a person's request. One of the most remarkable phe- 
nomena, and which has been seen by tens of thou- 
sands of persons, was the playing upon an accordion 
held in one hand, the keys being touched and played 
upon by invisible hands, producing most beautiful 
music. 

We have chemical phenomena. Chief among 
these is that of protection from the effects of fire. 
Mr. D. D. Home, deceased now some years — and 
perhaps the most remarkable medium that ever lived 
— used to take from a grate a brilliant, red-hot mass 
of coals, carry them about the room in his hands, 
and by his peculiar power indicate certain persons 
who were able to have them placed in their hands, 
and placing them there they would experience no 
unpleasant results. 

Another set of phenomena still more marvelous is 
called materialization, or the production of temporal 
spiritual forms out of surrounding matter. Mr. 
Crookes tested these phenomena many years ago 
and published the results. (See page 73.) The exam- 
ination was critical, and carefully carried on for 
weeks together in his own house, in his own labora- 
tory, with all his own methods. These figures were 
photographed, weighed and measured; he did every- 



292 Proofs of Life After Death 

thing that a scientific man could possibly do, and he 
has declared that, absolutely and positively, they are 
real existences — spiritual existences, because they 
are only temporary; they come and pass away again. 
The most perfect scientific test of the reality of these 
manifestations you can possibly have, is the power 
of photographing these forms. 

Another marvelous phenomenon is that of the pro- 
duction of casts of hands and feet, and even faces of 
these temporarily formed spiritual beings. These 
casts were made in melted paraffine. Paraffine is 
melted in a large quantity of boiling water, and the 
hands have to be dipped into the melted paraffine, 
and then are taken out and left floating in another 
vessel of cold water beside it. These molds are 
found entire, so that the aperture at the wrist is 
much smaller than the hand. Certainly no human 
hand could come out of it. Feet have been formed 
in the same way, which must have been accom- 
plished by some unseen power. 

Now we come to mental phenomena. They con- 
sist, first, of what is termed automatic — that is, writ- 
ing" done by the hands of persons against their will 
or without their will; done involuntarily — the matter 
that is written is not known to them. (See Prof. J. 
H. Hyslop, page 156.) We have every kind of writ- 
ing produced in this vv^ay. 

Then another set of phenomena is termed clair- 
voyance and clairaudience; the seeing of spirits and 



The Spiritualists 293 

the hearing of spirits. Persons having this power 
are able to describe what they see and describe the 
words they hear in such a manner that the friends of 
these spiritual persons are able to easily recognize 
them. Sometimes these persons are able to give 
information of what is going on at a distance. 

Then another of these curious mental phenomena 
is trance-speaking. There are mediums nov/ in all 
parts of the world who have this wonderful faculty. 
(Notably Mrs. Thom.pson, see Prof. Van Eeden, 
page 128.) There is also a remarkable power con- 
nected with this trance-speaking, w^iich many medi- 
ums have, the power of impersonation, or it may 
almost be called transfiguration. The medium seems 
taken possession of by another person, and acts the 
character so perfectly in voice and manner, and 
sometimes even in change of countenance, that he 
or she resembles the person who wishes to manifest, 
and is recognized by that person's friends. Some- 
times persons in this state are able to hold conversa- 
tion with others who speak a language of which they 
have no knowledge themselves. 

Now we have a series of distinct classes of phe- 
nomena — great roots of phenomena, each of which 
includes an enormous variety of separate phenom- 't 

ena, often varying from each other. These occur 
with mediums who are of all ages and conditions, 
educated and ignorant, young girls and boys, as well 
as grown men and women. * * * 



294 Proofs of Life After Death 

In view of the numerous men who have investi- 
gated this matter and given their decision, we may 
entirely throw aside the idea that imposture, only in 
slight measure, has produced these phenomena; 
they seem to me. to have the striking characteristics 
of natural phenomena as opposed to artificial phe- 
nomena; they have the character of general uniform- 
ity of type, coupled with variety of detail. In every 
country of the world, whether in America or 
Europe, or Australia, whether i England or France 
or Spain or Russia, we find the phenomena of the \ 

same general type, while individual differences 
among them show that they are not servilely copied : 

one from the other. Whether the mediums are men | 

or women, boys or girls, or even in some cases < 

infants, whether educated or ignorant, whether, even 
they are civilized or savage, we find the same gen- 
eral phenomena occurring in the very same degree 
of perfection. 

We conclude, then, that the phenomena are nat- \ 

ural phenomena; that they are produced under the 
actions of the general laws which determine the | 

inter-relations of the spiritual and material worlds, 
and are thus in accord with the established order of 
nature. 

They are from beginning to end essentially human. 
They come to us with human actions, with human 
ideas; they make use of human speech, of writing 
and drawing; they manifest wit and logic, humor 



I 



The SpirititaUsts 295 

and pathos, that we all can appreciate and enjoy; 
the communications vary in character as those of 
hurnan beings; some rank with the lowest, some 
with the very highest, but all are essentially human. 

Coming to the special point of the identity of 
spirits with deceased human beings, the evidence is 
abundant. I will mention a case illustrative of this 
point, taken from my own personal experience: I 
had a brother with whom I spent seven years of my 
early life. He died more than fifty years ago. This 
brother before I was with him had a friend in Lon- 
don whose name was William Martin; my brother's 
name was William Wallace. I did not know his 
friend's name was William, because he always spoke 
of him as Martin. I knew nothing more. Attend- 
ing a seance in the city of Washington, D. C, I 
received, to my great astonishment, a message to 
this effect: "I am William Martin; I write for my 
old friend, William Wallace, to tell you that he will, 
on another occasion when he can, communicate 
with you." I am perfectly certain that only one 
other person in America knew of the relations 
between my brother and Martin, or knew my broth- 
er's name, and that was my brother in California. I 
am perfectly certain that no person in the Hast could 
possibly have known either one name or the other. 
Therefore it seems to me that this was a most 
remarkable proof of identity. * * * 

Spiritualism demonstrates the existence of forms 



296 Proofs of Life After Death 

of matter and modes of being which are unaccept- 
able from the standpoint of mere physical science. 
It shows us that mind may exist without brain, 
and disconnected from any material body that we 
can detect, and it destroys the presumption against 
our continued existence after the physical body is 
disorganized or destroyed. It further demonstrates, 
by direct evidence as conclusive as the nature of the 
case admits, that the so-called dead are still alive — 
that our friends are often with us, though unseen, 
and can give direct proof of a future life, which so 
many crave, but for want of which so many live and 
die in anxious doubt. 

B. B. KINGSBURY t t t 

I feel that I shall make a very poor statement of 
the reasons which induce me to believe. I have a 
firm conviction of the fact of a future individual life 
(any other kind of life would be worse than annihi- 
lation, in my opinion). 

I was led early in my college career to investigate 
so-called mediumship with a conviction that "there 
was something in it," but what exactly it was, was a 
problem to be solved in the oncoming time. Mean- 
whil I ran the usual course of religious belief, then 
agnosticism verging to materialism as the most rea- 
sonable view of the physical universe, its phenomena 
and the phenomena of life generally. 

The death of a daughter at the age of twenty set 



The Spiritualists 297 

me off again to wondering if the manifestation of life 
in her — a brilHant girl, endowed with intellectual fac- 
ulties of a very high order, and with a most affection- 
ate disposition, with a keen artistic sense, love and 
talent for music — was a mere gleam of a few years, 
or whether it in fact endured beyond the change 
called death. My wife used a dial-planchette for 
some time and obtained some very marvelous evi- 
dences of a persistence of her individual life, but of 
course the limits of such a manifestation were such 
as to discourage the use after awhile, and a resort 
to mediums in Chicago and elsewhere brought with 
it a mixture of conviction and doubt with doubt 
preponderating largely, and some fraudulent man- 
ifestations seemed to place my wife especially in 
the position of a doubter, I still retaining the tenta- 
tive hypothesis that the things I had seen and expe- 
rienced were best explained on the spiritualistic 
theory of continuity of individual life beyond the 
grave, survival of the soul-part of man, and of course 
the existence of the soul as a concomitant of the 
human being. 

I shall not attempt to enumerate the many things 
I have seen and experienced on this line, as it would 
serve no useful purpose. I have become a member 
of the London Society for Psychical Research and 
have just read the exhaustive work of Professor 
Hyslop and with it have reviewed the earlier num- 
bers of the Proceedings of the Society, and must say 



298 Proofs of Life After Death 

that any person reading these reports of sittings 
with Mrs, Piper in this country and in England with 
an open mind, a mind unaffected by parti-pris or 
prejudice, must confess that the conclusions to 
which Hyslop, Lodge, Myers and others have come 
is the only one satisfying all conditions. 

The phenomena of hypnotism, mind-reading, tel- 
epathy, thought-transference, clairvoyance, clairau- 
dience, especially forms of "Vue a la distance" or 
"Fernsehen" of Carl Du Prel seem to me to indi- 
cate a power that the mere brain substance would be 
incapable of producing, but these are mere matters 
of evidence "tending," as lawyers would say, to the 
establishment of this most important conclusion of 
the continuity of individual life after the brain has 
ceased to be of any value as an instrument aiding in 
the work of producing this class of phenomena. 

I have been much encouraged by such works as 
Aksakofif's "Animismus and Spiritismus," many of 
Carl Du Prel's works, Crookes' brochure, Wallace's 
views, the very wonderful case of Mollie Fancher, 
the automatic communications of Mrs. Underwood 
— with whom and her gifted husband, B. F., I am 
personally acquainted — and originals of the writings 
I have seen at their house. 

I am bound under the circumstances to believe 
that these people, with good intellects and of honest 
purposes, have fairly stated the facts on which they 
base their convictions, and I am personally satisfied 



The Spiritualists 299 

of the objectivity of ghosts and apparitions from 
both personal experiences and the statements of 
such scientific men as Crookes, Wallace, Judge 
Edmonds, Professors Mapes, Hare, Richet, Weber, 
Zollner, and others too numerous to mention here. 

I have no sort of belief founded on the "Reason- 
ings of Plato" and his school, nor any of the argu- 
ments of almost universal belief in a future life, 
though I might find something to say about Andrew 
Lang's theory of the origin of religions, as the ghost 
theory, and especially the almost universal preva- 
lence of the phenomena called spiritualistic, witch- 
craft, etc., in all ages and among all sorts of people 
as stated in his "Cock-Lane and Common Sense." 

Only such work as the S. P. R. has been doing 
and is still engaged in doing can bring at last convic- 
tion to thinking, reasonable men, of the fact of an 
individual, conscious existence after death. 

HARRISON D. BARRETT t t t 

Responding to your request for a statement with 
regard to life beyond the grave, permit me to say in 
brief that my position is this: 

That life alone furnishes an explanation for life. 
That I find life in every physical atom so-called, 
which to me is but a product of combined life forces 
to visualize the same to our outward sense. Infinite 
life, therefore, is the foundation of my philosophy. 
With that as a working hypothesis, the immortality 



300 Proofs of Life After Death 

of the soul is logically deducible and the continuity 
of life beyond the grave provable by science. Man's 
yearning for greater and greater attainments, his 
desire to fulfill the^highest and complete conception 
of his mind could also assure me that there must be 
another state in which he can find opportunities to 
perfect himself, because infinite life is, all the chil- 
dren of men are, and because infinite life is eternal in 
duration, so must the children of infinite life be 
co-existing with their parent. Spirit return is 
provable by induction and deduction, as life is the 
eternal essence in every man's soul and is forever 
giving for its own. Such being the case, there can 
be no possible barrier placed between a loving soul 
excarnate and its mate or dear one incarnate in the 
flesh. I hold that these postulates are certainly logi- 
cal and that they are based upon sound common 
sense. 

ARTHUR J. RUSSELL t t t 

If inductive proof of a future life is required, I 
know nothing better than "The Experiences of 
Stainton Moses" (see Proceedings Society for Psy- 
chical Research); D. D. Home's "Incidents in My 
Life," London, 1863, or the little book published 
anonymously in Boston, called "Light on the Hid- 
den Way," written by Mrs. Catherine Paine Sutton. 

Personally, I rely more on an experience of my 
own, deductive in its nature, because it was a kind 



ab.^ 



The SpiritiiaJists 301 

of "illumination" on the subject, similar to those col- 
lected by Dr. J. M. Bucke of London, Ont., in his 
book called "The Cosmic Consciousness." The 
matter is so very personal that it is difficult to tell it 
in a series of letters designed for publication, but it 
threw a flood of light on the subject for me, when I 
presume it would have little evidential weight to 
another mind. By a sudden and clear illumination, 
while I was walking on the street, I saw that "all 
was good" and. that there had been in reality no 
death, but only another step in the steady progress 
of the soul in its march upward. I know this does 
not mean much only to the one who experiences it, 
but I give it in the barest outline for what it may be 
worth. 

DR. ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS t 

(It may well be said as a brief prelude to the 
expressions here following, that Andrew Jackson 
Davis, better than Tennyson, Emerson or the sev- 
eral recognized philosophers and seers of recent 
times, foreshadowed with most wonderful accuracy 
the evolution and discoveries of the race during the 
past half century. He pointed the way to the now 
universally accepted theory of evolution, to the 
growth and future of electricity — in telegraphy, tel- 
ephony, wireless telegraphy, etc., — to the discov- 
eries in chemistry, light, biology, and the various 
branches of the natural sciences. 

The great researches made by Darwin, Wallace, 
Haeckel and other noted naturalists in the field of 
natural history and biology tend with remarkable 



302 Proofs of Life After Death 

unanimity to prove that the purpose of the world's 
existence, so far as we can comprehend it, from a 
physical standpoint, is for the development of the 
individual man, and especially of his individuality. 
For among the billion an^ a half of persons on the 
earth, no two are alike physically; and mentally or 
spiritually the difference is still greater. — Editor.) 

The philosophy of death is the philosophy of 
change; not of change in the constitution or person- 
ality of the individual, but of change in the situation 
of the human spiritual principle; which, instead of 
being situated in an earthly body, is placed in a spir- 
itual organization; and, instead of living among the 
objects and personalities of the planet upon which 
the individual spirit was born, its situation is so 
altered as to fit It to live amidst more beauteous 
forms and in higher societies. 

Believe not, that what is called death is a final 
termination to human existence, nor that the change 
is so thorough and entire as to alter and destroy the 
constitutional peculiarities of the individual; but 
believe equitably, that death causes as much altera- 
tion in the condition of the individual as the bursting 
of a rosebud causes in the situation and condition of 
the flower. Death is. therefore, only an event — 
only a circumstance — in the eternal life and experi- 
ence of the human soul. 

In other language, death is simply a birth into a 
new and more perfect state of existence. Nature, 
which is the only true and unchangeable revelation 



The Spiritualists 303 

of the Divine mind, is replete with the most beauti- 
ful and demonstrative analogies, or with universal 
processes which perfectly correspond to the phe- 
nomena of physical dissolution. Everything is being 
incessantly "born again," or changed from one state 
of being into another; and this change is accom- 
panied, accomplished, and confirmed, by traditional 
movements or processes which mankind term death. 

And this is but a door which opens into new and 
more perfect existence. It is a Triumphal Arch 
through which man's immortal spirit passes at the 
moment of leaving the outer v^^orld to depart to a 
higher, a sublimer, a more magnificent country. 
And there is really nothing more painful or repul- 
sive in the natural process of dying (that which is 
not induced by disease or accident) than there is in 
passing into a quiet, pleasant, and dreamless slum- 
ber. The truthfulness of this proposition is remark- 
ably illustrated and confirmed by the following 
observations and investigation into the physiologi- 
cal and psychological phenomena of death, which I 
was qualified to make, upon the person of a dis- 
eased individual at the moment of physical dissolu- 
tion. The patient was a female about sixty years of 
age. 

When the hour of her ceath arrived, I was for- 
tunately in a proper state of body and mind to 
induce the superior condition (clairvoyant trance 
state. See Prof. Alfred Russel Wallace, page 292). 



304 Proofs of Life After Death 

I saw that the physical organization could no longer 
subserve the requirements of the spiritual prin- 
ciple. But the various internal organs of the body 
appeared to resist the withdrawal of the animating 
soul. ^ * * The body and the soul, like two 
friends, strongly resisted the various circumstances 
which rendered their eternal separation imperative 
and absolute. These internal conflicts gave rise to 
manifestations of what seemed to be, to the material 
senses, the most thrilling and painful sensations; but 
I was unspeakably thankful and delighted when T 
perceived and realized the fact that those physical 
manifestations were indications, not of pain or 
unhappiness, but simply that the spirit was eternally 
dissolving its copartnership with the material organ- 
ism. 

Now the head of the body became suddenly envel- 
oped in a fine, soft, mellow, luminous atmosphere; 
and, as instantly I saw the cerebrum and the cerebel- 
lum expand their most interior portions ; I saw them 
discontinue their appropriate galvanic functions; 
and then I saw that they became highly charged 
with the vital electricity and vital magnetism that 
permeate subordinate systems and structures. That 
is to say, the brain, as a whole, suddenly declared 
itself to be ten-fold more positive over the lesser 
portions of the body than it ever was during the 
period of health. This phenomenon invariably pre- 
cedes physical dissolution. 



The Spiritualists 305 

Now the process of dying, or of the spirit's 
departure from the body, was fully commenced. The 
brain began to attract the elements of electricity, of 
magnetism, of motion, of life and of sensation, 
into its various and numerous departments. The 
head became intensely brilliant; and I particularly 
remarked that just in the same proportion as the 
extremities of the organism grew dark, and cold, the 
brain appeared light and glowing. 

Now I saw, in the mellow, spiritual atmosphere, 
which emanated from, and encircled her head, 
the indistinct outlines of the formation of another 
head. * * * This new head unfolded more and 
more distinctly; and so indescribably compact and 
intensely brilliant did it become, that I could neither 
see through it nor gaze upon it as steadily as I 
desired. While this spiritual head was being elimi- 
nated and organized out of and above the material 
head, I saw that the surrounding aromal atmosphere 
which had emanated from the material head was in 
great commotion; but as the new head became more 
distinct and perfect, this brilliant atmosphere grad- 
ually disappeared. * * * jj^i ^^g identical manner 
in which the spiritual head was eliminated and 
unchangeably organized, I saw, unfolding in their 
natural progressive order, the harmonious develop- 
ment of the neck, the shoulders, the breast, and the 
entire spiritual organization. * * * The defects 
and deformities of her physical body were, in the 



3o6 Proofs of Life After Death 

spiritual body which I saw thus developed, almost 
completely removed. * * * 

While this spiritual formation was going on, which 
was perfectly visible to my spiritual perceptions, the 
material body manifested to the outer vision of 
observing individuals in the room, many symptoms 
of uneasiness and pain, but these indications were 
totally deceptive; they were wholly caused by the 
departure of the vital or spiritual forces from the 
extremities and viscera into the brain, and thence 
into the ascending organism. 

The spirit rose at right angles over the head or 
brain of the deserted body. But immediately previ- 
ous to the final dissolution of the relationship which 
had for so many years subsisted between the two, 
the spiritual and material bodies, I saw — playing 
energetically between the feet of the elevated spir- 
itual body and the head of the prostrate physical 
body — a bright stream or current of vital electricity. 
This taught me that what is customarily called death 
Is but a birth of the spirit from a lower into a 
higher state; that an inferior body and mode of 
existence are exchanged for a superior body and 
corresponding endowments and capabilities of hap- 
piness. I learned that the correspondence between 
the birth of a child into this world, and the birth of 
the spirit from the material body into a higher world 
is absolute and complete — even to the umbilical 
cord, which was represented by the thread of vital 



I 



The Spiritualists 307 

electricity, which for a few minutes subsisted 
between and connected the two organisms together. 
And here I perceived, what I had never before 
obtained a knowledge of, that a small portion of this 
vital electrical element returned to the deserted 
body, immediately subsequent to the separation of 
the umbilical thread; and that portion of this ele- 
ment which passed back into the earthly organism 
instantly diffused itself throughout the entire 
structure, and thus prevented immediate decompo- 
sition. * Hi * 

I saw her continue to conform and accustom 
herself to the new elements and elevating sensations 
which belong to the inner life. I did not particu- 
larly notice the workings and emotions of her newly 
awakening and fast unfolding spirit; except, that I 
was careful to remark her philosophic tranquillity 
throughout the entire process and her non-participa- 
tion with the different members of her family in 
their unrestrained bewailing of her departure from 
the earth. * * * 

Could you but turn your natural gaze from the 
lifeless body, which can no longer respond to your 
look of love; and could your spiritual eyes be 
opened; you would behold — standing in your midst 
— a form, the same, but more beautiful and liv- 



mo;. 



* 



The period required to accomplish the entire 
change, which I saw, was not far from two hours 



3o8 Proofs of Life After Death 

and a half; but this furnishes no rule as to the time 
required for every spirit to elevate and reorganize 
itself above the head of the outer form. 

Without changing my position or spiritual per- 
ceptions, I continued to observe the movements of 
her new-born spirit. As soon as she became accus- 
tomed to the new elements which surrounded her 
she descended from her elevated position, which was 
immediately over the body, by an effort of the will- 
power and directly passed out of the door of the 
bedroom, in which she had lain (in the material 
form) prostrated with disease for several weeks. It 
being in a summer month, the doors were all open, 
and her egress from the house was attended with no 
obstructions. I saw her pass through the adjoining 
room, out of the door, and step from the house into 
the atmosphere! I was overwhelmed with delight 
and astonishment when, for the first time, I realized 
the universal truth that the spiritual organization 
can tread the atmosphere — which, while in the 
coarser earthly form, we breathe — so much more 
refined is man's spiritual constitution. She walked 
in the atmosphere as easily, and in the same 
manner, as we tread the earth and ascend an 
eminence. Immediately upon her emergment 
from the house, she was joined by two friendly 
spirits from the spiritual country; and after ten- 
derly recognizing and communing with each other 
the three in the most graceful manner began 



The Spiritualists 309 

ascending obliquely through the ethereal envelop- 
ment of our globe. They walked so naturally and 
so fraternally together, that I could scarcely realize 
the fact that they trod the air — they seemed to be 
walking upon the side of a glorious but familiar 
mountain! I continued to gaze upon them until the 
distance shut them from my view; whereupon I 
returned to my external and ordinary condition. 

O, what a contrast! Instead of beholding that 
beautiful and youthfully unfolding spirit, I now saw, 
in common with those about me, the lifeless — cold — 
and shrouded organism of the caterpillar, which the 
joyous butterfly had so recently abandoned. * * * 

To the spiritually enlightened, these revealments 
will possess great weight, and afiford much consola- 
tion; but to the external intellect, to the materialist, 
they will appear like the methodical hallucinations of 
an excited sensorium. To the last-named class I 
would say that: I depend not upon these spiritual 
observations and interior communications for a 
demonstration of the reality of an immediate resur- 
rection and ascension of the spiritual body at the 
time of physical dissolution. I acknowledge and 
recommend no authorities but Nature and Reason. 
Hence, for proofs of the immortality of the soul, I 
involuntarily turn from the teachings of men and 
books, to the principles of nature and the sanction- 
ings of my highest reason. 

It surely is not safe, nor is it reasonable even, to 



310 Proofs of Life After Death 

believe, as many minds do, that the human soul is 
immortal, and that its resurrection from the grave is 
inevitable, merely because it is asserted that Jesus 
was seen subsequent to His death and burial. Nor 
is it reasonable to base all our hope and faith in the 
immortality of the soul, upon the mere speculations 
and teachings of any form of sectarianism; because 
the reasoning mind full readily perceives the 
unsoundness and fallibility of such evidence; and 
cold, unhappy, involuntary skepticism will be the 
certain consequence. Those who believe in the 
authority of men and books, and base their teach- 
ings thereon, should understand that they cannot 
satisfy those who believe in the authority of Nature 
and Reason. 

In this connection, I will state three conclusions 
to which a deep and far-reaching investigation into 
the use and universal tendency of nature conducted 
me. And these conclusions lead legitimately to 
more sublime and desirable ones, which your own 
intuition and principle of reason will discover. 

We are immortal because: — 

(I.) Nature was made to develop the human 
body, 

(11.) The human body was made to develop the 
human spirit. 

(III.) Every spirit is developed and organized 
sufficiently unlike any other spirit or substance in 



The Spiritualists 311 

the universe, to maintain its individuality through- 
out eternal spheres. 

Each human spirit possesses within itself an eter- 
nal affinity of parts and powers; to which affinity 
there exists nothing sufficiently superior, in power 
and attraction, to disturb, disorganize, and annihi- 
late. 

These are evidences with which the world is not 
familiar; but they are plain and demonstrative; and 
are destined to cause great happiness and elevation 
among men. 

In conclusion, I desire to say, that there is noth- 
ing to fear, but much to love in a purely natural or 
non-accidental death. It is the fair stranger which 
conducts the immortal soul to more glorious scenes 
and harmonious societies. Let mankind never 
lament because of the mere departure of an indi- 
vidual from our earth; for the change, though cold 
and cheerless to the material senses, is, to the inte- 
rior vision and the ascending spirit, bathed in 
auroral splendor! To the enlightened mind "there 
is no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying," to those 
who live in constant conjunction with Eternal 
Truth. 

EDMOND H. SEARS t t 

We start in life an unbroken company, brothers 
and sisters, friends and lovers, neighbors and com- 
rades are with us; there is circle within circle, and 



312 Proofs of Life After Death 

each one of us is at the charmed center, where the 
heart's affections are aglow and whence they radiate 
outward on society. Youth is exuberant with joy 
and hope; the earth looks fair, for it sparkles with 
May-dews wet, and no shadow hath fallen upon it. 
We are ail here and we could live here forever. The 
home-center is on the hither side of the river; and 
why should we strain our eyes to look beyond? 

But this state- of things does not continue long. 
Our circle grows less and less. It is broken and 
broken, and then closed up again; but every break 
and close makes it narrower and smaller. Perhaps 
before the sun is at his meridian the majority are 
on the other side; the circle there is as large as the 
one here; and we are drawn contrariwise and vibrate 
between the two. A little longer and almost all 
have crossed over; the balance settles down on the 
spiritual side, and the home-center is removed to the 
upper sphere. At length you see nothing but an 
aged pilgrim standing alone on the river's bank and 
looking earnestly towards the country on the other 
side. 



CONCLUDING LINES 



What the Editor Thinks About It 

Some men know what they know, and having this 
knowledge realize its insignificance compared with 
what the future has in store for the coming genera- 
tions. Others are ignorant of their ignorance, and 
being so, are pretty well satisfied with themselves 
and the present state of man's knowledge and aspi- 
rations. 

Here are the proofs of life after death. 

But the world is become scientific, and knowl- 
edge to have universal acceptance must be of the 
scientific order; that is, the proposition that man 
lives after death must be demonstrated in such a 
manner as to force itself without possible doubt 
upon every intelligent mind. True, when this kind 
of a demonstration is in our possession and we shall 
have learned that death is the gateway or threshold 
of immortality, we shall doubtless continue for cen- 
turies to come to speak of those who have passed 
through this gateway — as dead, extinct and so on — 
just as we now speak of the sun rising in the morn- 
ing and going down at night, an expression and 
thought we knew four hundred years ago at least to 
be false. 

(313) 



314 Proofs of Life After Death 

So fixed are the mental habits of man that ordi- 
narily we express ourselves respecting the phenom- 
ena of nature in the language of Moses and Job, 
rather than that of Newton or Procter, and as we 
speak, so also do we usually think. 

Psychical research will furnish the demonstration 
of life after death, we are fully convinced, within the 
next twenty years, probably in a much less time than 
that. The demonstration will be such as to force 
itself inevitably upon every intelligent mind. This 
is the judgment and opinion of the author of this 
book. Meantime we to-day have infinitely stronger 
proofs that man does not die with the death of the 
body than Columbus, on his starting westward 
across the Atlantic, had that the earth was round — 
like a ball or globe — as we learned in our primary 
geographies. 

To many of the keenest, brightest, most profound 
thinkers psychical research has already proven that 
there is conscious existence after death. The intens- 
ity of purpose, the sincerity and ability of the lead- 
ers in this branch of scientific research are so well 
known that absolute reliance may be placed on their 
integrity and unflinching purpose to have the truth 
and nothing but the truth. 

There is not much poetry or philosophy in psy- 
chical research. It is hard fact, laboriously brought 
up from an unknown world — a world almost as 
inconceivable to most men as were the facts of the 



^ 



Concluding Lines 315 

action of the law of gravitation to our fathers. Take 
a large ball, for example, and place on the upper 
surface tiny wooden figures; turn the ball over and 
they fall off. That was all there was to it, anyone 
could see it, and he who pronounced the world to be 
round was not only a heretic against the prevailing 
religion — and science too for that matter — but he 
•was crazy. To think of holding on to the lower side 
of the earth, and even moving around in ships and 
carts without falling off. Why, it was and would be 
to this day, without a conception of the laws of 
gravity, simply inconceivable. 

So with psychical research, it is working on the 
nether side, it is looking towards the new country. 
Many great men say to-day just as the wise men of 
the Salamanca University said tO' Columbus: "There 
is no other side. The world is flat. You are crazy, 
'You shall nevermore see the buds unfold in the 
springtime, nor be awakened by the song of the 
thrush at dawn.' When you get on the nether side, 
when you die — you fall off and that is the end of it." 

Oh, no. We are pretty well satisfied that that is 
ridiculous — foolish — in fact we know better, even 
though we may desire to know still better. There 
is to-day an important movement under way, inau- 
gurated by some of the members of the American 
branch of the Society for Psychical Research v.'hich, 
if successful, v/ill forward the work of the society 
immeasurably. It is in the hands of Professor 



3i6 



Proofs of Life After Death 



Hyslop of Columbia University, which is a guar- 
anty that it will not suffer for lack of earnestness of 
purpose and full appreciation of the importance of 
the subject. 

To the scientific organization known as the Soci- 
ety for Psychical Research, in our opinion, must we 
look for the ultimate, unquestionable proof of life 
after death; and that many of us who are living 
to-day will "pass up the gang-plank to take ship for 
the new country," with a knowledge — given us by 
God if you like — but acquired by reason, observa- 
tion, experiment and repeated demonstration — that 
vast and still vaster fields lie before us, that grand 
and grander possibilities are open to us and invite 
our better efforts, that greater work, wider travels, 
higher thoughts and deeper love are our heritage in 
that new country. 

Sunlight is life. 

Out into the music of the night, a little way 
beyond the pyramidal shadow the earth throws into 
space — on the nether side — there in the illimitable 
universe — there is everlasting light; there is ever- 
lasting ? 



Immottality fzom New Standpoints, 



And the Will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who know- 
eth the mysteries of the Will, with its vigour? For God is a 
great Will -pervading all things hy nature of its intentness. 
Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death 
utterly, save only through the weakness of his fee'ble Will. 

—Qlanvillc. 



(818) 



Supplement 



Immortality from ^J^ew 
Standpoints 

By 

Elmer Gates 

Professor of Ps^cholog-^ and Psychurgy, Washington, D. C. 



Member Philosophical Society of Washington ; A nthropotogical Society of 
Washington ; Microscopical Society of Washington ; Mycological Club 
of Washington ; Society for Philosophical Inquiry of Washington ; 
National University Committee of One Hundred of Washington ; 
Atnerican Microscopical Society; National Educational Asso- 
ciation ; American Roentgen Ray Society; Institute 
Psychologique International of Paris ; Society for the 
Encouragement of A rts, Manufactures and Com- 
merce of London ; American Academy 
of Political and Social Science. 



Author of the "Art of Mind Building^" '■'■The Science of Mentation," "On 

New Methods for the Cure and Diagnosis of Disease" numerous 

Magazine articles, and of t'wo forthcoming books entitled "An 

Introductory Account of the Art of Using the Mind" 

and "An Exposition of Psychology and Psy- 

chuTgy by Inductive Introspection." 



Discoveries in Psychology, Electricity, Chemistry, Physics, etc. 



Written October gth, igo2, at The Elmer Gates Laboratories of Psychology and 
Psychurgy, Washington, D. C. 



INDEX 



Pagb. 

Parts : 

Editor's Preface, .. ;. .; ;.: . 321 

Introduction, . . . . ;. . 323 

What Would be Proof of Immortality, . 324 

Emotional Basis of My Belief in Immor- 
tality, ...... 328 

Verdict of Consciousness and Its Cosmical 
Validity, 330 

Argument From Mind Embodiment, . . 343 
How Immortality will be Discovered, if 
Ever, 353 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

In segregating Prof. Gates' contribution from the 
main body of this work I have been governed by its 
highly scientific character, the originaHty and pro- 
fundity of the thought expressed, and the startling, 
luminous prospects of man's coming knowledge opened 
up by it to the mind of the student. It is a fitting cli- 
max to this Symposium — I was about to say, the voice 
of Plato at the banquet. 

It has been my endeavor, throughout, to keep the 
matter comprising these pages within the easy compre- 
hension of the general reader. In this chapter, how- 
ever, there is room and need for the closest study. I 
have placed it apart, therefore, from the rest of the 
book and in the form of a special scientific supplement. 
It will be found a deep and lucid essay on this supreme 
question of life, an essay by one whom, in the judgment 
of the Editor, future history is likely to pronounce the 
greatest thinker of his day. 

Prof. Gates is but little past forty years of age, yet 
Prof. McGee of the Smithsonian Institution writes of 
him : "His work will revolutionize education and lead 
to greater intellectual progress in the next quarter of a 
century than has been achieved in all the centuries 
before." "His work covers the whole range of the sci- 
ences," says Prof. Herman T. Lukens, Ph. D. "I am 
profoundly impressed by his educational ideas and his 

(321) 



322 Preface 

experimental originality, fertility and clearness," writes 
Prof. Geddes, of the University of Edinburgh, Scot- 
land. "I look upon him," says Theodore Dreiser, "as 
one of the great mental leaders upon whose periodic 
appearance on the earth the advancement of human 
thought depends." Ella Wheeler Wilcox, our modern 
— and greater than — George Eliot writes, "Elmer 
Gates I consider one of the most remarkable men of his 
age, if not the most remarkable." Prof. Eustace Miles, 
M. A., Cambridge University, England, says : "I am 
interested in every aspect of his work and see nothing 
at fault either with his methods or his conclusions." 

Scores of others bear witness to the genius, the orig- 
inality and pre-eminent intellectual qualifications of 
Prof. Gates. 



Immoztalit^ fzom ^ew S^^^dpoints. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



My Dear Mr. Thompson : Your several urgent 
requests for a brief statement of my strongest reasons 
for believing in the continuance of one's conscious per- 
sonal identity after the change or biotic crisis called 
death finds me rather unwilling to attempt to write out 
my speculations and convictions upon that subject. 
This reluctance is partly due to the diffidence one 
might naturally be expected to feel in undertaking to 
discuss a problem about which there is no definite sci- 
entific knowledge; and chiefly because what I have to 
say is deduced from certain psychologic data contained 
in one of my yet unpublished books. These data, too 
extensive and technical to be epitomized in so short an 
article, are facts derived from certain new and special 
methods of studying consciousness and of using the 
mind, and which, if not understood, will deprive my 
arguments of their main force and meaning. Further- 
more, I have no knowledge of any other kind of exist- 

(323) 



-324 Proofs of Life After Death 

ence than those ordinary forms of life with which 
biologists are acquainted, and my statements must 
therefore consist of deductive speculations based on 
psycho-physical principles and on certain difficultly-de- 
scribable subjective experiences derived from a study 
of my own consciousness by special methods of experi- 
mental introspection. 

I do not deem it necessary to refer to any of the well 
known argum.ents v/hich, whatever their value, have 
failed to convince beyond the possibility of a reasonable 
doubt. In this article I can offer only the merest sug- 
gestions of a few of the main points upon which I base 
the hope that death is but a doorway to some kind of 
continued existence, the precise nature and conditions 
of which the world has probably not even guessed. 
Those who are interested in following further these 
lines of insight will find them more fully elaborated in 
some one of my forthcoming books on Psychology and 
Psychurgy;^ wherein will be found data for two other 
arguments, and the arguments herein given will acquire 
a much more profound meaning after becoming 
'acquainted with the subject matter of these volum.es. 

WHAT WOULD BE PROOF OF IMMORTALITY? 

Science needs just one inductive fact from a direct 
observation of the objective conditions of the other life ; 
and whilst I do not deny the possibility that there are 
those who have had such a personal experience, yet, if 
such is the case, that experience is so purely personal 

1 Psychology is tbe- science of mind, and Psychnrgy is the art of 
more skillfully and efficiently using it. As Psychology is the science of 
all mental experiences whatsoever it follows that the sciences as taxono- 
mic groups of experiences are subdivisions of Psychology, and that Psy- 
chology is the science of the sciences, and Psycburgy is the art of the arts. 



Immortality from Nezv Standpoints 325 

that it is divested of the essential characteristics of sci- 
entific proof. 

To give a concrete instance of what I would consider 
to be adequate proof of another kind of existence I will 
give an hypothetical case. Suppose there were a form 
of wave-energy somewhat similar to Roentgen Rays, 
but differing from them as they differ from sound. Let 
us suppose this new kind of radiant force to be invis- 
ible, but that it can be made visible by projecting it 
upon a wall coated with a substance whose color is 
altered by the action of the rays. Suppose, further, 
that all known inorganic and inanimate substances are 
transparent to that force, so that they can be held in 
the path of the rays, between their source and the wall, 
Avithout cutting off part of the rays, and thus causing 
the color of the wall to be changed over a corresponding 
area — producing an effect like a shadow. Suppose, 
also, that it were discovered that a living thing is 
opaque to these rays and that it casts a shadow as long 
as it is alive, but becomes transparent at the moment of 
actual death. If on killing the animal hermetically 
sealed in a glass tube it were found, after a certain 
lapse of time, to become suddenly transparent, and if at 
the same instant a shadow precisely the same shape as 
the animal were seen to pass out through the wall of 
glass and move upward in front of the wall, then 
the presumption would be that some organism, not 
atomic, perhaps etheric, and capable of passing through 
glass, had left the atomic body of the animal. If that 
escaping organism could be caught and made to give 
evidence that it still possesses mind, then we would 
have an inductive laboratory proof of the existence of a 



326 Proofs of Life After Death 

"spiritual" organism and of the continuity of life 
beyond death, — but this would not demonstrate endless 
existence. If such an experiment can ever be made, 
then biology and psychology will have been extended 
across the border without an intervening chasm, and 
the continuity of personal identity beyond death will be 
scientifically demonstrated. It might be argued that 
the visible animal organism is composed of atomic 
solids and liquids and gases; and may there not be 
etheric solids and liquids and gases, the particles of 
which are infinitesimally smaller than atoms, and might 
there not be an etheric body composed thereof? Such 
proof could be made a co-ordinate part of the growing 
body of scientific knowledge. In the judgment of 
nearly every scientist in the world such demonstration 
of the actuality of another life has not yet been made. 

(The Editor visited the Elmer Gates Laboratories in 
April, 1902. He learned then, by personal inquiry, of 
certain experiments carried on by Prof. Gates in the as 
yet unknown fields of etheric phenomena and radiant 
force, which promise to lead to interesting results, but 
he was unwilling to say much about them until after 
they shall have been further investigated by others 
besides himself. — Editor.) 

Even if a disembodied or excarnate mind could com- 
municate with me by speech, apparition, materializa- 
tion, or telepathically, I would still have to be sure 
that the phenomenon was not an illusion, hallucination 
or delusion, and even if I were personally sure that 
such direct communication with a spirit had taken 
place, the proof would be wholly personal and could not 
become a scientific datum except to those who, like 
myself, had had a like experience. In true science the 



Immortality from Nezv Standpoints 



327 



element of personal testimony is eliminated even to the 
extent of making a comparative study of the personal 
equation ; scientific proof must be capable of demon- 
stration independently of the element of personal testi- 
mony; and a fact must not only prove itself congruous 
w^ith the whole body of related scientific knowledge, but 
it must also be capable of direct inductive demonstra- 
tion under such circumstances and conditions as to 
leave no possible room for uncertainty or doubt. * * 
That which was thought to have been a spectre may 
only have been a realistically vivid dream, or some 
pathological aberration of the imagination, or a trick of 
some designing person ; and this may be true even when 
several persons suppose they have simultaneously seen 
the same phantom. Persons who have witnessed an 
apparition — supposing, for the sake of argument, that 
such things really have an objective existence — cannot 
complain if others who have not had such an experi- 
ence refuse to accept such statements as demonstrated 
science, because the testimony of one person or of a 
million persons cannot establish a scientific datum, for 
human testimony is notably fallible and deceptive. 
There is a higher authority for Truth than testimony, 
namely, experimental quantitative demonstration ; taxo- 
nomic congruity with all the other facts of that science 
to which the given fact belongs ; and philosophical con- 
sistency with the total body of scientific knowledge. 
These conditions would be satisfied by the supposed 
experiments with the etheric organism of an animal, 
but they are not satisfied by the usual reports of experi- 
ments with apparitions, etc. 



328 Proofs of Life After Death 

EMOTIONAL BASIS OF MY BELIEF 
IN IMMORTALITY. 

Whilst I disclaim the possession of any personal 
experience tending to directly demonstrate there is an 
existence beyond death, yet, I must confess, that I have 
always had what I will call an emotive certainty or a 
feeling-insight that there is that in my mind which will 
persist after the death and dissolution of my body. You 
ask me for my reasons for this certainty, and I reply 
that I have no' reasons, but that such is unmistakably 
and ineradicably my very definite feeling, — it is not, as 
I said before, an intellectual conclusion, but an emotive 
or esthetic insight. It is not a matter of intellective 
reasoning that makes Viro love Patiencia more than 
Furiosa, but a matter of his innate disposition and per- 
sonal liking, but he can understand intellectually why 
he prefers one to the other. On the other hand, he 
cannot tell you why he prefers Amanda to Miranda, 
because he is unable to detect any conspicuous differ- 
ences between them in appearance or conduct ; and yet 
the one holds his heart captive whilst to the other he is 
indifferent. Why? He cannot give reasons — it is a 
matter of feeling. Ask a Mozart or a Beethoven why 
he prefers music to painting, and he will not be able to 
give you any better reason than that it is more to his 
taste. Why did Faraday prefer scientific research, and 
Kant philosophy, and Poe poetry, and Thorwaldsen 
sculpture ? Because of emotive preference and the pre- 
dilection of feeling. Well, in like manner I find in my 
emotive nature a feeling of immortality — I find in the 
very nature of my consciousness a feeling of immeas- 



Immortality from Nezv Standpoints 329 

urable oldness — an echo of time immemorial as well as 
a feeling of necessary endlessness, and I cannot reason 
away these feelings. Do not understand me to say that 
I have memories of any former existence or previsions 
of any future existence, — that to which I refer is far 
more fundamental than would be such reminiscences 
and previsions: I cognize in the very nature of con- 
sciousness a characteristic that is eternally old and 
coeternal with Space, Duration and Truth. When I am 
aware of my consciousness I feel and know that there 
is in it a factor that was present primordially in the 
beginningless Cosmos. This feeling is part of my con- 
sciousness just as surely as is my love for scientific 
research or my desire for world-betterment or my ven- 
eration for the All ; I did not put these feelings there — 
I found them there when I grew old enough to intro- 
spect my mind, and there, in spite of recurrent doubt 
and criticism, they have remained. This feeling-insight 
of the endless perpetuity of my conscious identity is one 
of great certainty — I feel entirely sure that there is for 
my consciousness a To-morrow after death. It may 
therefore be said that such belief in immortality as I 
possessed during the earlier years of my life was intui- 
tive or instinctive — due to the emotional demands of 
my nature — and based upon a feeling-insight still more 
fundamental than my emotions — and I could not then 
and I cannot now weaken these feelings ; even when I 
was led to believe that all known biologic and physical 
facts were against such an assumption I found in my 
consciousness, clearer than ever, the feeling of end- 
lessness and also the emotive insight of personal con- 
tinuity. 



330 Proofs of Life After Death 

THE VERDICT OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND iTS 
COSMICAL VALIDITY. 

After long experience in experimental introspection 
and after some skill in the art of consclousing^ I began 
dimly to perceive that this feeling-insight — this emotive 
certainty — and this consciousness-cognition is inher- 
ently and innately the result of the cosmical nature of 
consciousness, which, having been born out of that- 
which-is, partakes of ITS universal nature, and thereby 
finds in the very modes of knowing the evidences of 
certain fundamental truths of existence ; and that there- 
fore my conviction and insight and cognition might be 
a symptom of an actuality in Nature, and that this 
feeling and insight might itself be based on a deeper 
and more universal mode of knowing than my own 
individual mental capacities, — and this seemed to give 
me an intellectual ground for my belief. 

Consciousness has its own essential nature, which is 
constitutive of all knowledge according to the nature of 
that knowing-process, and also, in extension of the idea 
of Kant, according to the nature of the known ; and I 
seem to understand that this nature of the knowing- 
process is necessarily congruous with the immanent 
nature of the Universe — the known — because con- 
sciousness, as individualized, has been genetically 
derived therefrom and is dynamically and psycholog- 
ically part thereof. If, in the universe of the known, 
for instance, it is the nature of bodies to have dimen- 

2 Exposition of Psychology and Psychurgy by Introspective In- 
duction is the titl« of the third of the forthcoming volumes, and it in- 
cludes a presentation of the art of conscionsing as the method of know* 
ledge-getting and criterion of Truth. 



Iinmorfalify froin Nczv Standpoiufs. 331 

sions, and if a body, no matter how small, could not 
exist without dimension, — if the very nature of Reality 
is such as to necessitate that fact, — then, consciousness 
(being part of that reality and of the same identical 
nature) must be so constituted as to know that a dimen- 
sionless body could not exist. In the same way 
Consciousness insists, for example, that there is "Some- 
thing" that had no beginning, and Reason adds : else 
there would be nothing now ; it insists that Space could 
not have had a beginning, that Duration could not, 
that Truth could not ; and that something or somewhat 
else than these Three Eternals must have been co-eter- 
nally beginningless — a Fourth Eternal, which must 
have been uncaused; for there was naught antecedent 
to cause it. That "Something" is the Eternal Mystery 
of Existence and we may call it Spinoza's "eternal sub- 
stance," "energy," "spirit," "God," or we may name it 
what we please. Whatever It is, it is that which is the 
mutationless substrate of the visible and invisible uni- 
verse of phenomenal manifestation, and in It must have 
been immanently combined such essential eternal prop- 
erties as dimensions, persistence, motion and mind : — 
for if consciousness were not eternally immanent in 
this Fourth Eternal, how could mind or minds ever have 
arisen? Consciousness must therefore have been eter- 
nally a condition or property of that-which-fills-space, 
and consciousness must consequently be as universal in 
that space-filling substance as is motion or gravity. 
Mind is as much a part of the process of Nature as is 
the flow of the tides, the growing of grass, or the 
evolution of the sidereal system. Mind is as inherent 
in the Cosmos as is motion ; and even Mr. Pierce's 



SQS 



332 Proofs of Life After Death 

Tychism does not help us to conceive of the origmation 
of mind out of dimension, motion and persistence. If 
it is not an eternal property of that which was begin- 
ningless, then how did mind arise? If consciousness is 
immanent in Cosmos, then it has a nature more funda- 
mental than our own limited individual experience — it 
must have a cosmical nature which is constitutive of its 
own experiences, and if such is the case, may we not 
expect to find its feeling-insights and deeply intuitive 
cognitions to be fundamentally true ? And if immortal- 
ity is a fact in Nature, would not consciousness, being 
an immanent and omnipresent part of Nature, know it 
just as it knows space to be boundless? When Con- 
sciousness studies itself it is studying that factor in 
Nature which is regnant wherever acts are adapted to 
ends, whether it be in a cell or in God. And if Con- 
sciousness finds in itself a cognition of its own endless- 
ness, then that cognition is there because such is the 
fact in Nature. Plato's argument that this "fond long- 
ing after immortality," being an almost universal aspi- 
ration, proves immortality, is upon my line of argument 
shown to be the effect of a more fundamental insight ; 
because the argument I am offering accounts for this 
longing and the universality of this belief. I do not 
account for immortality by saying that God or Nature 
would not arouse hopes incapable of being fulfilled, as 
is also argued by Leconte, but by making it an intuitive 
insight arising out of the immanency of mind in the 
universe and its consequent acquaintance v/ith the total- 
ity of conditions and possibilities, and being part of the 
entire Cosmos its nature must be the same as that 
which is fundamental in Cosmos, and therefore its nat- 



Immortality from Nczv Standpoints 333 

tiral consciousness of itself would lead to such func- 
tioning as would inevitably produce the cognition of its 
own endlessness and the feeling-insight of its continued 
personal conscious identity, — that is, it would do so if 
such be the fact in Nature. 

Can consciousness directly know any truth about 
existence which the mind has not inductively experi- 
enced beforehand? If so, then we may have further 
reason for confidence in this feeling-insight. An 
example of such knowledge anterior to experience is 
easily given : I have never, for example, found by per- 
sonal experience that there is not a boundary to space, 
but consciousness tells me that there can be no such 
boundary — not merely that there is not such a limit, but 
that in the very nature of things consciousness knows 
that there cannot be such a limit, — and reason tells us 
that even an impassable boundary would only serve to 
indicate the unlimited extension beyond ; I have had no 
personal proof that duration was beginningless, and yet 
consciousness knows that anterior to an assignable com- 
mencement there was absolutely infinite time — it not 
only knows that there was no beginning, but that there 
could not possibly have been a beginning; I have not, 
according to my present memory, lived always as this 
particular mind which I now call myself, and yet the 
consciousness in me knows that the same truths which 
are now true did not at any remote time in antiquity 
first commence to be true : God did not at some remote 
period in the past suddenly wake up and announce that 
thereafter the "shortest distance between two points 
would be a straight line" — this truth and such truths 
were always true and even Omnipotence could not 



334 Proofs of Life After Death 

change them : Truth reigns eternally over Omnipotence, 
in whom therefore can be no shadow of turning ; and in 
somewhat the same way my consciousness seems to 
know that it will survive the death of my body, and I 
give it the same credence as I give to its cognitions 
about Space, Duration, Motion and Truth. All this is 
not demonstration to any but to those who clearly find 
such insights and cognitions in their consciousness ; and 
I cannot evade the conviction, based on my own experi- 
ence, that all persons may by proper training get that 
kind of skill in consciousing which will enable them to 
find in their own consciousness the same introspective 
evidence that I have found, and those who do so find it 
will indeed have a priceless possession. 

In the book previously mxCntioned, and also in another 
one of my forthcoming books, entitled "An Introduc- 
tory Account of the Art of Using the Mind," I have 
shown that the active process of consciousness by which 
it becomes conscious of its own nature and states, — 
(which process I have called consciousing) the true 
method of knowledge-getting and the criterion of 
Truth, that the simplest experience or "feeling" which 
consciousness has in being conscious, is the funda- 
mental experience, premise and datum, according to the 
nature of and in the terms of which all its other expe- 
riences are alone possible; and that this experience 
which it has with its own nature and mode of activity 
has the quality of indubitable certainty incapable of 
being doubted by any form of sophism, argument or 
skepticism — that this basic experience is a datura that 
we absolutely know. All statements that may be put 
into words may be doubted, but this fact, namely, that 



Immortality from New Standpoints 335 

consciousness knows that it is conscious cannot by any 
possibility be doubted. If consciousness had not that 
one first experience, then no other experiences would 
be possible: it is at once the process, the content and 
the goal of experience. Can consciousness know any 
more about itself? It can directly know its own 
nature — it knows that its states are not all qualitatively 
alike — that changes perpetually occur in the states ; and 
it knows that if it could not detect differences and like- 
nesses in these states it could not know anything what- 
soever, and so on. But not only can it know its own 
nature — the nature of the knowing-process — but it also 
knows certain fundamental things about the objective 
world — the Cosmos — its other and completed Self: it 
knows a priorily with a certainty greater than the find- 
ings of individual experience, for example, that a thing 
cannot be in two places at once; that a thing cannot 
move from one place to another and skip half the dis- 
tance ; that parallel lines cannot meet, etc. ; — and these 
knowings of consciousness are confirmed by a poste- 
riori experience with things. If in like manner con- 
sciousness within itself evidences that it is conscious of 
its own indefinite perpetuity, then may we not believe 
that immortality is a fact in Nature ? And is not this an 
insight to which minds will more fully attain as they are 
more highly evolved, and as they become more and 
more experimentally acquainted with those higher men- 
tative processes which have hitherto hardly been known 
to humanity ? 

Let me reiterate and otherwise state this argument. 
I may doubt all statements capable of being put into 
words, but consciousness cannot doubt that it is con- 



336 Proofs of Life After Death 

scious. The mind may indeed doubt any statement that 
may be made about the origin and nature of conscious- 
ness — it may doubt any theory or generaHzation about 
consciousness — but consciousness, when it has, so to 
speak, the "feehng" or "sensation" of being conscious, 
then it cannot doubt the existence of consciousness : it 
experiences it immediately and directly; it knows that 
one fact absolutely, namely, that consciousness exists. 
With a skepticism far more profound than that of Des- 
cartes I may question even the sanity of the mind itself, 
but consciousness cannot doubt its own conscious expe- 
rience in being conscious. That particular experience 
to which I now refer cannot be stated in a proposition — 
it is simpler than any concept or idea or image or sensa- 
tion out of which propositions are constructed, and the 
experience to which I allude is at once the fundamental 
feeling and the fundamental cognition. It must be 
experienced to be known^ and this experience is the 
fundamental and first induction, — a bit of knowledge 
that cannot be doubted — a fact that is a criterion of 
Truth. Now, can consciousness have further equally 
indubitable experiences with itself? It can. And 
therein lies the possibility of knowledge. It may dis- 
cover, e. g., that there is more than one qualitative state 
of consciousness; that changes of state constantly and 
necessarily occur; that states follow each other in a 
time-sequence ; that the states have different intensities ; 
that they vary in duration; that the states mutually 
miodify each other, and so on, and all these experiences 
constitute inductive data even more surely than do any 
of the experiences of the mind with objective phenom- 
ena. Reread this point, so as to emphasize its import- 



Immortality from Neiv Standpoints 337 

ance in your mind. When an inventory is made of all 
these inductive experiences of consciousness with its 
own nature and processes, and when these data are 
arranged according to their different degrees of inte- 
gration, and when they are taxonomically classified, we 
have a new domain in psychology — an inductive sci- 
ence of consciousness, or, if you please, an inductive 
nietaphysic. 

When we introspectively study the intellective con- 
tent of that wondrous subjective domain, we find not 
only those particular kinds of inductive data to which I 
have just referred, consisting of experiences of con- 
sciousness with itself, but we find also another kind of 
data relating to the constitutive conditions of objective 
existence. I would call the former a posteriori and the 
latter a priori were it not for the fact that these words 
have already an accepted philosophical meaning quite 
different to that which I attach to these two kinds of 
introspective data, — and yet there is an instructive simi- 
larity. When by usual methods of observation, and lab- 
oratory experiment, we discover, e. g., that a prism 
refracts light, we call it an a posteriori datum ; if, how- 
ever, in advance of ever having known that a prism 
would refract light we deduce the idea from known 
physical and optical laws, then we would, somewhat 
loosely, call it an a priori datum. More strictly speak- 
ing, all that humanity has by experience found to be 
true is a posteriori whilst a priori relates to cognitions 
of conditions and things which, whilst they may come 
to us in actual experience, have their origin in the 
nature of the mind and are independent of experience, 
and show what a thing must be if it ever comes into 



338 Proofs of Life After Death 

existence. My extension of the meaning of the a priori 
involves the concept that it is a cognition of the con- 
dition of things not merely as the nature of the mind 
constitutes them, which is the Kantian insight, but that 
it is also a cognition of the condition of things as they 
are necessarily constituted by objective nature and by 
that Total Reality in which the mind is one factor : that 
is, the nature of the mind and the nature of objective 
existence are one nature, and the mind has such nature 
as it possesses because it is part of the Total Reality, 
and because both the mind and objective existence must 
conform to the essential truth in accordance with which 
all things must necessarily exist. These necessary 
truths are known to consciousness as such, because 
mind and objective existence have evolved in accord- 
ance with such necessary truths. 

For my present purpose I will point out that there 
are two domains of a posteriori knowledge; first, the 
objective domain of inductive experience as hitherto 
recognized by science, whether it consists of an observa- 
tion of objective things or of an experimental study of 
one's own mental processes; second, the subjective 
domain of consciousness inductively studying itself. In 
that subjective realm consciousness may (A) make an 
inventory of its experiences with itself — an a posteriori 
domain which I have ventured to study by special 
methods, or (B) it may make an inventory of its funda- 
mental cognitions regarding the necessary nature of 
objective existence; — this might also be called a poste- 
riori, because these cognitions are inductively found in 
the mind, as, e. g., the cognition that Space is and must 
be boundless, Duration beginningless and endless, that 



i^^MMMM* 



Immortality from Nezv Standpoints 339 

Motion cannot be discontinuous, and so on ; and on the 
other hand it might be called a priori because whatever 
comes into existence must conform to these cognitions ; 
we know beforehand what a thing cannot be or do. 

It is most remarkable and of highest philosophic 
interest that what consciousness finds a priorily neces- 
sary human experience finds a posteriorily to be a fact 
in Nature. 

Consciousness a priorily knows that a body cannot 
skip half the distance in going from one point to 
another, and human experience has a posteriorily found 
no single instance of discontinuous motion : this demon- 
strates that consciousness finds in its own nature those 
cognitions which put it in touch with the eternal nature 
of existence, and being inherently and eternally part of 
reality, we do not wonder. To get a convenient point 
of view, let us for a moment consider Truth, Space and 
Duration as Three Eternals ; and "That-which-fills- 
space" as the Fourth Eternal. This Fourth Eternal can 
exist only according to the condition of what conscious- 
ness cognizes as necessary truths, e. g., it is a necessary 
truth that the half is less than the whole ; that a diam- 
eter shall have one particular relation to the circumfer- 
ence; that the sum of the three angles of a triangle 
equal two right angles ; that motions take the direction 
of least resistance, etc. The Fourth Eternal is that 
which is co-eternal with Duration — uncreated, endless. 
This Fourth Eternal is the manifested Totality, visible 
and invisible, known and unknown ; the smallest portion 
of it must occupy some space, and it therefore has 
Dimension as an immanent and eternal property ; it has 
lasted eternally and will last forever and has therefore 



340 Proofs of Life After Death 

Persistence; it is in endless movement, the amount of 
which motion, physics teaches us, can neither be 
increased nor diminished, and therefore has as an 
immanent and eternal property that we call Motion; 
and if it had not also as an immanent and eternal prop- 
erty that we call Life or Consciousness, then life or 
consciousness could never have arisen in this Universe. 
Of the four immanent and eternal properties of "That- 
which-fills-space" — Dimension, Motion, Persistence 
and Mind — we are directly aware of only one, namely,. 
Mind, and through that we know the others. Mind is 
therefore immanent in the Cosmos, co-eternal with it,, 
and omnipresent in it. It is not strange, then, that con- 
sciousness has in its own nature a cognition of the 
nature of the Total Reality, — and being eternally part 
of the All we may a priorily expect its fundamental 
cognitions to be in accord with the very conditions of 
its ov/n existence as well as of all objective existence. 

Consequently, if consciousness, in studying itself, 
finds its a priori cognitions (known by an inductive 
study of itself) to be a posteriority true, and knows 
them to be necessarily so, may we not also expect to 
find its fundamental emotive-insights or feeling- 
insights to have a corresponding actuality and fulfill- 
ment in nature ? Now there is evidence that such is the 
case: consciousness (and the mind which it builds) 
finds in itself certain feeling-data, e. g., it innately, 
inherently, and naturally avoids pain and seeks pleas- 
ure; — it prefers the happy to the unhappy emotions. 
This is true of all living things. Now what is its mean- 
ing? It is interesting to note, as an explanation of 
this meaning, that the pleasant states promote and pro- 



Immortality from Nciv Standpoints 341 

long life, whilst the unhappy states injure and destroy 
it ! Conversely, all life-promoting experiences become 
pleasant and all life-destroying actions become painful 
in the course of evolution. Now., consciousness finds in 
itself, after the exclusion of all irrelevant matter, a 
feeling-urging for the best, whether that best be known 
or unknown, and even whether its acquisition involves 
pleasurable or painful experiences — it is willing to 
endure pain if for the best; and evolutionary data as 
well as psycho-physical principles demonstrate that that 
is best which is ultimately life-promoting, and that if 
even at first it be painful it will ultimately secure a 
greater pleasure or satisfaction. In this case the feel- 
ing-insight which is a priori turns out to be a posteri- 
orily true and best; and in this fact is a great lesson. 
* * * Again, there is in us more and more as we 
evolve higher in the evolutionary scale another feeling- 
insight of an esthetic character which urges us to seek 
grace, symmetry and beauty. And we have learned 
a posteriorily that graceful movements are most eco- 
nomical of energ}^ ; that symmetry means strength ; and 
that beauty means perfection — that the merely useful 
does not possess the highest utility until it also be beau- 
tiful. Thus, in the very nature of esthetic emotion is an 
a priori insight which is a posteriorily best. * * * 
Once more, in the very nature of emotive activity is the 
fundamental desire for conscious contact with another 
self or selves, culminating in the desire for the maxi- 
mum conscious contact with the total other self — the 
Cosmos ; the mind itself is fundamentally a phenome- 
non of social interaction between the self and the not- 
self through sensory experience; in fact, until it has 



342 Proofs of Life After Death 

developed a cognitive relation with the not-self it can- 
not even have a concept of the self. Now, this desire 
for others — this fundamental urging towards altruism 
— is the basis of all social phenomena, and will culmi- 
nate in a conscious oneness with the Total Reality. 
What is a priority present in consciousness as a feeling- 
urging towards others is a posteriority active in organic 
life as social development and as religious feeling. 
* * Now, no factor of consciousness is more funda- 
mental than its cognition for its own continuance, and 
(in my own consciousness at least) no emotive feeling 
is more definite than that of the endlessness of my own 
personal identity ; therefore, if it can be shown that the 
fundamental cognitions of consciousness and its funda- 
mental feeling-insights are a posteriorily actual in 
Nature, and if it can be shown that one of these cog- 
nitions of consciousness involves its own endlessness 
and that its feeling-insights involve its personal per- 
petuity, then immortality will have been demonstrated. 
It is perhaps important to remark that the process of 
consciousing in making a progressive inventory of its 
experiences arrives at a point where by means of its 
fundamental power to detect likenesses and differences, 
it discovers two great kingdoms of conscious states, 
namely, first, those wholly due to the experiences of 
consciousness with itself, some of which are modifiable 
by volition ; and second, those which are derived from 
the experiences of consciousness with sensations, some 
of which are modifiable by volition — some belong to the 
bodily organs and some come from the nerves of special 
sensation. The first are cognized to be different from 
the second — the former have a subjective and the latter 



Immortality from Nciu Standpoints 343 

an objective character, and thus consciousness, by a 
process too technical to be here described, finds no 
chasm to be bridged between the self and the not-self; 
the individual self is part of the Total Self ; you trace 
your pedigree back to the beginningless Totality — the 
ALL — you have the Universehood in you : whatever 
the Fourth Eternal is, that thou art also! 

ARGUMENT FROM MIND-EMBODIMENT 
Psycho-physical experiment proves that conscious 
experiences, such as those of sensations, intellections, 
emotions, etc., create structural changes and additions 
in brain cells, which additions remain as the enregis- 
tered memories of those experiences. This was directly 
proved by extensive experiments upon dogs and other 
animals, and abundant clinical and pathological evi- 
dence shows the same to be the case with man. A dog 
trained to consciously discriminate between thousands 
of different tints, shades, pitches and hues of color had 
a larger development of brain-fiber and a greater num- 
ber of brain cells than one that had not thus been 
trained.^ 

The important conclusion is that the mind-activity 
creates organic structures, and that mind embodies 
itself in the mechanism of the body. This is an import- 
ant law : namely, that states of consciousness embody 
themselves in material organization. The whole mass 
of evidence collected in the study of organic evolution 
is proof that with increase of mental development there 
is a corresponding increase of anatomical development. 
If this were not so there would be functional differenti- 



3 See The Monist July 1895, and the author's forthcoming vol- 
unaes. 



344 Proofs of Life After Death 

ation without concomitant structural differentiation : 
there would be functioning- without functioning struc- 
tures, which is impossible. The body of a living crea- 
ture is a mind-manifesting mechanism; the different 
degrees of evolutionary development are different 
integrative degrees of mind-embodiment. If evolution 
resulted in getting less and less mind it would not be 
progression but retrogression : evolution is therefore 
explicable only as a process of mind-embodiment. 

If Mind were not, like Motion, Dimension and Per- 
sistence, a phenomenon connected with "substance," 
then it could equally well be manifested by a total and 
absolute vacuum. An empty space, empty of atoms, 
ether and of all substance whatsoever, cannot have 
properties — -cannot act or react — cannot be dead or 
alive, then — only "substance" or "energy" can exhibit 
activities. So far as we know a living thing (that is, a 
mind) cannot exist apart from, or independently of, a 
material embodiment. Mentation is inextricably con- 
nected with metabolism ; and metabolism is a series of 
atomic and molecular motions ; and it may be true that 
sidereal motions are connected with higher orders of 
cosmic mentation. Spencer has said that throughout 
the Universe in general and in detail there takes place 
a perpetual redistribution of matter and motion, and to 
which I would add, there also takes place a redistribu- 
tion of mind. The Universe is, owing to the mind 
immanent in all of it, and for other reasons, a Living 
Totality. The Universe is alive ! If my consciousness 
is born out of the cosmically immanent Mind, then I am 
a differentiated unit of that cosmical Mind : just as my 
visible body is differentiant and part of the matter of 



Immortality from Nczv Standpoints 345 

the Universe, so my consciousness is part of the 
Supreme Mind imm.anently embodied in that Uni- 
verse. If all minds are taxonomic units in the psycho- 
logic totality — if my consciousness is a taxonomic part 
of the One Consciousness, then, even if my bodily 
■organism were annihilated, my mind would still be a 
taxonomic part of the One Consciousness and would be 
rementated into structural embodiment whenever it 
would consciously recur to the Great Mentator. Let 
me restate the point : I am a living organism ; a new 
conscious experience makes structural additions to my 
brain cells, and ever)^ conscious state which recurs to 
me creates a corresponding redistribution of the matter 
of my organism into an embodiment or enregistration 
of that given state of consciousness ; and likewise, in the 
living Universe in which I am supposedly a psychologic 
unit, and a taxonomic sub-unit of the total conscious- 
ness, whenever that taxonomic conscious state which is 
me, is reconscioused by the ALL, I would be re-enreg- 
istered in a structural embodiment by the redistribution 
of the matter of the ALL. I am not merely an anatomi- 
cal but also a psychologic organ in the Omnicosm. To 
be a logical part of the whole or a taxonomic part of 
the whole is to make it quite impossible for conscious- 
ness to conceive that whole without becoming conscious 
of each of its parts, and if I am a taxonomic unit in the 
Omnicosmic Mind the act of remembering me would 
re-create me. I don't say this is proof of immortality, 
but it is a psycho-physical possibility extended from 
what we know actually takes place in living organisms 
to what can and probably must take place within the 
living Universe. If there is One Mind immanent in 



346 Proofs of Life After Death 

Cosmos, and if you as an individual are a taxonom- 
ically differentiated conscious state, then that conscious 
state, which is you, must be mentatively re-embodied 
whenever it is remembered ; nay, it cannot become dis- 
embodied. If every conscious experience embodies 
itself in structure, and if a mind cannot exist apart 
from material organization, then it follows, that if you 
are a psychologic unit of the Universe, that you must 
remain embodied in some form of organism visible or 
invisible. 

Why should Omnicosm perpetually undergo internal 
differentiation and integration, and the endless redis- 
tribution of its component Matter, Motion and Mind? 
The answer is^ that in no other way can The Totality- 
remain conscious of itself : consciousness has that 
nature which makes it impossible for it to exist save in 
a state of perpetual change. A uniform sensation of 
pressure becomes quickly unnoticeable — the pressure 
must perpetually vary or the sensation will cease, and 
this is true of all conscious states whatsoever. It is 
impossible to maintain a uniform conscious state. Con- 
sequently the Supreme Mind which is embodied in the 
Infinite Universe in some manner similar to the way in 
which mind is embodied in your organism, must con- 
stantly undergo changes within itself, and to be fully 
conscious these changes must take place perpetually in 
every part of itself or it would become unconscious. 
This state of psychologic change could be maintained 
only by an infinite series of differentiations and integra- 
tions, each one of which in order to keep on changing 
must continually progress or retrogress mentally, that is,, 
only by conscious evolution of its parts (as creatures or 



■^sisJltiidMiMiti^^^mmimt^ 



Immortality from Nczu Standpoints 347 

worlds) can that perpetual change of consciousness 
take place by which consciousness can exist. And if 
the individual progresses indefinitely it must ever 
embody more and more mind, and the limit would, of 
course, be the becoming conscious of the One Mind, 
and its Nirvana of Immortality would be its conscious 
identification with the ALL. 

This would indicate that living things are physio- 
logic and psychologic organs within the one organism, 
and you or I are functional parts of the one infinite 
mechanism, — that is, of the body of the living ALL. 
This conclusion is in harmony with the conception of 
a cosmical mind immanent in all substance, making a 
One Mind functionally transcendent in Omnicosm, — a 
beginningless and endless Being whose dwelling place 
is infinite space, who embodies all power, and in whom 
we literally live, move and have our being. Let it dwell 
awhile in your contemplation that something has 
always been in Space and that if that space had ever 
been empty of that something it would be empty now, 
otherwise something could come from nothing. If your 
mind is like mine, and if you have the same access to 
your consciousness that I have, you will know that 
there never could have been a time when there was 
nothing but empty space — that Something must have 
beginninglessly occupied that space, uncaused and 
uncreated, — in the same way that Space, Duration and 
Truth are uncaused and uncreated. Space is uncaused 
because it couldn't not have been. The Something 
which has been co-eternal with Duration and Space 
also couldn't not have been, because if at any time it 
had not been, it could never have come into being. I 



348 Proofs of Life After Death 

say, that if your mind is like mine you will find in your 
consciousness the rmmistakable evidence that "That- 
which-fills-space" is eternal, and out of it through 
its endless mutations has arisen the Universe of mani- 
festation, and all that we call Nature. If this Eternal 
Something had not had in it as an immanent property 
that which is the basis of consciousness, then life or 
mind could not have appeared in the Universe. For 
you cannot deduce mind from such other properties of 
the Eternal Something as Persistence, Dimension and 
Motion. If you find in your consciousness the evidence 
of which I speak, namely, that consciousness must 
necessarily be as eternal as the "substance" or "energy" 
or "reality" or "something" which is in Space, then 
you will understand that consciousness is something 
connected intimately and componently with every por- 
tion or particle of that something, and consequently 
that mind or intelligence is at the very heart of Cosmos. 
Now, mind consists in a response to stimuli by which 
the self adjusts itself to the environment and thus 
adapts acts to ends, and consequently that "eternal some- 
thing" which is made up of such properties as Persist- 
ence, Dimension and Motion, is also made up of another 
property which directs these motions intelligently, and 
we have the conception of an Immanent God. More- 
over, all living things act and react upon each other 
through intervening space by means of several kinds of 
etheric wave-energy — each mind is in reciprocal action 
with all other minds. Thus, for instance, every living 
thing gives off electrical v/aves when mentally active 
and in proportion to the degree of its activity, and these 
waves transmitted through space at the speed of a 



Immortality frojii Nczu Standpoints 349 

hundred and eighty thousand miles per second, modify 
the mentative processes of the Hving things upon which 
they fall. In like manner, there is a growing body of 
evidence tending to show that under certain physio- 
logical, psychological and material conditions sensory 
images can be telepathically transmitted from one brain 
to another. These forces by reacting between organ- 
isms places them in reciprocal functional relation, more 
effectually tying them into one unitary functioning than 
the dift"erent organs of the body are tied together by 
nerves and nerve-fibers. There is much evidence prov- 
ing that all minds on the earth are tied together into 
One Mentative Process — it is as if we were all standing 
in the surf of the great cosmical ocean and felt the 
same wave at the same instant. Furthermore, all minds 
according to their degree of knowledge are guided by 
the same truths, and in all minds the same kind of con- 
sciousness is at work, and thus it is that we are led to 
the conception that the earth as a whole is the center of 
a cosmical mentative process of evolutionary develop- 
ment differentiating itself into millions of creatures of 
every taxonomic degree of mind-embodiment. If the 
other worlds of space are peopled with life, then they 
too are mentative organs of the Cosmos, and are tied 
together by interplanetary wave-motions through the 
ether, and we are led to the conception of a sidereal 
functioning, and so on, including Omnicosm as a living 
unit — as one functional mental totality — and this is the 
conception of the Functional God : the eternally begot- 
ten ALL. Once more, every mental integrant is com- 
posed of sub-units of which it is the psychic synthesis. 
Thus, as I have elsewhere more elaborately demon- 



350 Proofs of Life After Death 

strated, out of sensations of the nine kinds the mind 
constructs images of objects, each image being a syn- 
thesis of all the sensory experiences which the mind has 
had with that object. The sensations are actually 
embodied in the brain as enregistered memory-struc- 
tures consisting of chemical and anatomical additions to 
the brain-elements, and by means of fibers the different 
sensation-enregistrations are associatively integrated 
into an image. Now, no one of these sense-cells could 
entertain that state of consciousness which we call an 
image, because an image-consciousness is one taxo- 
nomic degree higher than a sensation-consciousness. In 
like manner, out of segregated images the mind con- 
structs concepts, and the concept-consciousness is one 
taxonomic degree higher than an image-consciousness, 
and so on, through ideation, thinking, etc. If there is a 
mental unit which is a synthesis of all the individual 
minds on this earth, then that unit is one taxonomic 
degree higher than the most advanced human mind on 
earth ; and if there is a synthesis of the world-minds of 
all the planets in space, then that intelligence is one 
taxonomic degree higher still, and so on, until we 
arrive at the conception of the final synthesis of all 
highest orders of intelligences, which would be a con- 
scious state transcendently higher than its highest units, 
and this is the conception of the Transcendent God. I 
have given these three conceptions more as an allegory 
or symbol of some corresponding reality, which, in my 
opinion, science is some day destined to work out ; and 
I have ventured this speculation to facilitate the con- 
ception of a Living Universe in which all creatures of 
all grades are functional parts of the one mind. And 



Immortality from New Standpoints 351 

in such a universe-embodied mind each creature, as a 
taxonomic part, is a memory enregistered in the infinite 
organism, and as such would have an endless progres- 
sive existence. 

The key-note to this special argument lies in the con- 
ception of what is meant by being a taxonomic unit in, 
and part of, the Supreme Mind. When I say that I am 
materially part of the Universe I allude to the fact that 
my body is a lump, chunk or piece of the total amount 
of matter of the Universe; and by being d3'namically 
part of the ALL I mean that my body represents in its 
activities a definite amount of energy which is part of 
the Infinite Energy; but when I speak of myself as a 
differentiant out of^ and psychologically part of, the 
Infinite Consciousness I do not mean an amount of 
matter or a quantity of energy, but a separately dis- 
criminated and discriminable conscious state which dif- 
fers from all other conscious states in the ALL in two 
ways: ist, according to the fundamental power of con- 
sciousness to detect likenesses and differences in its 
own states this particular differentiated state which in 
me has qualitative peculiarities of its own ; 2d, it is of 
a given integrative degree in the taxonomic scale of 
conscious states and as such represents a psychic quan- 
tity. By psychic quantity I mean the relative degree of 
taxonomic inclusion or subsumption ; thus, a sensation 
is a taxonomic unit in an image ; images are taxonomic 
units in concepts ; and concepts are units of an idea. 
An idea must consist of relations between at least two 
concepts, and each concept must be an integration of at 
least two images, and so on. Now, two concepts repre- 
sent a larger psychic quantity or a wider taxonomic 



352 Proofs of Life After Death 

domain than one concept, — and a concept covers a 
larger domain of natural phenomena than an image. 
It is in this sense that I speak of a man's mind as being 
a psychic part or a taxonomic unit in the Omnicosmic 
Mind ; and being a taxonomic concept a man must bear 
taxonomic relations of inclusion and exclusion, of sub- 
sumption and supersumption, to the One Mind, and, as 
such, forms an integral and logical part of the total 
consciousness; and as such cannot be forgotten, and 
being kept in the consciousness of Omnicosm, must be 
embodied in an amount of matter and energy corre- 
sponding to that man's evolutionary degree of mind- 
embodiment, because consciousness cannot exist apart 
from organized substance. 

Hence also, man's organism is part of the organized 
mechanism of Omnicosm according to the degree of his 
mind-embodiment. 

All that takes place in infinite Space must be due to a 
differentiation and integration of the perpetually-redis- 
tributed activities of the "eternal substance," and every 
integrant is genetically, materially, dynamically, spati- 
ally and psychically part of that ALL ; and as a psychic 
part of the ALL must be biologically embodied, because 
mind cannot exist apart from matter ; and every embod- 
iment must be more complex structurally according as 
it is more complex and evolved mentally. Important 
consequences follow from this which I will not enu- 
merate. 



Immortality from- Nciv Standpoints 353 

HOW IMMORTALITY WILL BE DISCOVERED, 
IF EVER 

If immortality is a fact in Nature, then the steady 
progress of Science may be expected eventually to dis- 
cover it ; and the best way to promote progress towards 
that end is to abandon theorizing and speculations and 
devote our time to the advancement of every science 
and of every part of science, without preferment for 
one part over another. It is the business of the inves- 
tigator in studying any given science to acquire correct 
images of all the objects of his domain, giving prefer- 
ence to no one class over another; it is his business 
to get ail the correct concepts and ideas of his subject 
without being biased for financial or other reasons 
towards any one class of concepts — otherwise his men- 
tal content will be neither a logical or a taxonomical 
whole; and with reference to the general advancement 
of science it may be said that no one science should be 
given preference over another, but to the fullest extent 
of our powers and facilities all the sciences should be 
equally advanced, and in that way we may hope for the 
quickest solution of those riddles of the Universe which 
have so persistently baffled faith and philosophy. 
Hypotheses and theories generally misinterpret all the 
facts and phenomena subsumed under them, and a the- 
ory not only misleads the individual for a part or whole 
of his lifetime, but such theories have misled whole 
races of people for hundreds and thousands of years. 
Only Truth can safely and surely lead us to more truth, 
and if progress is to be efficiently promoted it will be 
necessary to get together in classified form every fact 
which can be inductively demonstrated ; and from this 



354 Proofs of Life After Death 

taxonomy of knowledge we must eliminate all personal 
interpretation, falsehood and theory. There is in every 
science a certain number of things that can be abso- 
lutely known, and such facts will remain true a million 
years from now, and in so far as they guide us at all 
they will guide us more wisety than mere theories and 
beliefs. Such a body of inductive knowledge is the 
Revelation which Cosmos has been making to Man — 
the collected, verified and classified sum of demon- 
strated knowledge constitutes the true Scriptures of the 
Human Race, and in its application, through invention 
and otherwise, we have the true methods for the bet- 
terment and redemption of humanity; and the greatest 
opportunity of the age consists in applying trained 
minds to extending science and in applying it to the 
amelioration of human conditions. As all discovery 
and invention must be made by the mind ; and as all 
knowledge consists of mental content; and as all 
growth and progress is mental progress, it follows that 
an art of more skillfully and efficiently using the mind 
must be the method by which Science is to be extended 
and applied. Psychology is the science of all mental 
experiences, and it is therefore the science of the sci- 
ences ; and all knowledge of any science consists of 
intellectual experiences with the things of that science, 
and by the art of consciousing we can eliminate theory 
and hypothesis and falsehood from scientific data and 
thus there will be produced a body of actual knowledge, 
incapable of being doubted, and safe for the guidance 
of conduct, because so far as it goes it is true. There 
is no more important undertaking for the human race 
than the getting together of the total sum of its verified 



Immortality from New Standpoints 355 

knowledge and the provision of facilities for more 
readily and completely teaching and applying it. 

It can be shown that the order of anatomical evolu- 
tion and the taxonomic order of psychologic develop- 
ment and the logical order of the evolution of science 
are one and the same thing; and that when there is 
placed in the human brain the taxonomic knowledge of 
any science there is but little needed besides a few years 
of rest and growth to cause that brain to take the next 
step in the extension of that science ; but that step can 
be ftiuch facilitated and augmented by a scientific art of 
using the mind. The most important instruments in a 
laboratory are the minds that make the experiments ; 
and the most important assets of the world are its dis- 
coverers and inventors. If an organization can be 
effected consisting of trained mentators devoting their 
lives philanthropically to the ascertainment and appli- 
cation of Truth ; if these mentators can be selected from 
the best minds of each race, nation, profession, voca- 
tion, etc., and furnished with the collected and verified 
sum of knowledge and with adequate experimental 
facilities they will rapidly solve the world's problems 
by promoting equally the progress of all sciences. A 
good mentator must be good emotionally and morally 
as well as intellectually, and the application of knowl- 
edge to the development of character is one of the most 
important steps in the Mentative Art. 

In the Mentative Art science is becoming conscious 
of its own true method — a method by which the mind 
discovers and invents and learns to appreciate utilities 
and beauties ; and the most fundamental opportunity of 
man consists in getting more mind and learning how 



356 Proofs of Life After Death 

to use it. Hitherto genius has blundered along hap- 
hazardly, achieving success through myriads of useless 
failures ; and that facility which has hitherto been lim- 
ited to a few great minds will under the new methods 
become the inheritance of the majority, and through 
the Mentative Art the modern age will harness the 
greatest force of Nature — MIND — and put it to solv- 
ing the problems of humanity. In this way, by the 
gradual increase of the amount of mind possessed by 
individuals and by teaching them how to use their 
minds and by giving them the classified sum of actual 
knowledge and proper experimental facilities with 
which to work, will they solve those interesting prob- 
lems to which science as yet has given us no answer. 
Personally I am profoundly convinced that science will 
find MIND immanent in, and functionally regnant 
over, Nature; will demonstrate the value of a moral 
and ethical life and show its religious relations : that 
which perfects a man as a person is morality, that which 
perfects his relations to others is ethics, and that which 
perfects his relation to The ALL is religion. 

One more word : Science constitutes the first world- 
movement in the history of the earth : all other religions 
and systems have been confined to some particular race, 
nation, sect or tribe ; and these systems in the history of 
humanity have appeared and disappeared like clouds in 
the sky. But recently there has arisen a movement that 
has won the respect and devotion of the best minds of 
every race, nation and country, and by its very nature 
it is destined not to be superseded by something else 
after a few centuries or a few thousand years : it is the 
world-taste for the study of inductive science and its 



I 



Immortality from New Standpoints 357 

beneficent application through inventions, etc. This 
movement began about the time of Thales in ancient 
Greece; it was revived in Copernicus, Galileo and 
Kepler; it was brought forward through Newton and 
his contemporaries, and was evolutionized and revolu- 
tionized by Darwin and his colleagues ; and hundreds of 
heroic pioneers have patiently added to the sum of 
knowledge; inventors and practical men of all kinds 
have applied it to immediate world-betterment. This 
world-movement has touched every hamlet and tribe on 
the face of the earth and has left not intolerance and 
persecutions, but blessings of all kinds ; it has given us 
better homes, better foods, better clothes, better health, 
— it has brought us the telegraph, the telephone, the 
railroad, anaesthetics, antiseptics, longer life and myri- 
ads of good and useful things. Amongst the devotees 
of every religion, and the peoples of every race, nation 
and country we find the best minds looking to science 
for the solution of their problems, and we have thus 
already before us a world-movement and the basis for a 
world-federation. To get more mind and learn how to 
use it in discovering and applying truth is the basis of 
an active Universal Brotherhood. This great world- 
movement, as yet unorganized, is "in the air ;" it is the 
Zeit-Geist of the time; and it inaugurates a millennial 
cycle for humanity. This movement cannot be led by 
any one person or body of people, as most religious 
movements have been ; it accepts for its creed and char- 
ter and leader nothing less than the total ever-growing 
body of inductive scientific knowledge — the Revelation 
of Science ; and its method will be the art of using the 
mind as that art may hereafter be developed. This will 



358 Proofs of Life After Death 

put the control of the world into the hands, or rather 
into the brains, of the best minds of each class and com- 
munity; and when once a more highly developed sci- 
ence and art shall have been applied to the scientific 
begetting and rearing of children, and to their early 
education; and when a race of more normal people 
shall, by means of a perfected mentative art and with 
an extended scientific knowledge^ have been applied to 
the systematic ascertainment and application of Truth, 
carried on as a religious mission, then we may expect 
that a rapidly increasing knowledge of the Universe — 
a synthetic science — will lead to the solution of the 
various problems that now perplex us, — and among 
them the problems of God, Freedom and Immortality. 
We may anticipate the gradual obliteration of war, dis- 
ease and crime. Following this recent extraordinary 
Intellective development will be a period of correspond- 
ing emotive development in which Humanity will learn 
to appreciate the utilities, beauties and opportunities of 
existence. 

Why all this about the progress of science and the 
extraordinary world-movement that is revolutionizing 
humanity? Because I wish to emphasize one import- 
ant point, namely, that there is that in the Universe 
which has succeeded, and is succeeding and will con- 
tinue to succeed, — it has produced worlds and peopled 
them with evolving life ; it has revealed to us a body of 
actual knowledge; in the very fact that evolution has 
talcen place it shows the triumph of good over evil — the 
victory of knowledge over ignorance — of pleasure over 
pain. And that which has succeeded is MIND, or con- 
sciousness ; and MIND is part of the universe, is imma- 



Immortality front Nezv Standpoints 359 

nent in it, has the eternal nature expressed in it ; and you 
and I have inherited that nature, and are possessed of 
the spirit, meaning- and promise of that greatest mys- 
tery of existence, — consciousness, — and by means of 
Mind all possibilities are open to us; and when we 
study its nature we are studying the nature of the 
Supreme Mind, and are directly conscious of that which 
has been eternally regnant in Cosmos. Whatever prob- 
lems are solved by the future will be solved by con- 
sciousness, whether these problems relate to the object- 
ive or subjective world. All possibilities are opened to 
consciousness, and the possibilities of the Universe are 
Infinite ; and among these possibilities, as I hope I have 
shown, are those of an endless progressive existence in 
a Universe at whose head is an Infinite Mind, of which 
v/e are functional parts. 



INDEX. 



Contributors and Authorities. 



SCIENTISTS. 

Bade, L., Engineer, Paris, Con- 
tribution of, 49 to 50. 

Bayley, Dr. Weston D., Phila- 
delphia, Contribution of, 52 to 
55. 

Brunot, Prof. A., Master of 
Conferences, Sorbonne Uni- 
versity, Paris, Contribution 
Of, 68 to 69. 

Crookes, Prof. Sir Wiiliam, F. 
R. S., London, Expression of 
in (Modern Spiritualism), 73 
to 85. 

Duclaux, E., Member of the 
Academy, Director Pasteur 
Institute, Paris, Contribution 
of, 48. 

Dungan, Prof. D. R., Pres. Col- 
lege, Canton, Mo., Contribu- 
tion of, 70 to 71 



Flammarion, Camille, Secretary 
General French Astronomical 
Soceity, Paris, Expressions 
and Investigations of, in Ura- 
nia, Lumen, The Unknown, 
92 to 103 

Plournoy, Professor Th., Uni- 
versity of Geneva, Geneva, 
Switzerland. His theory of 
telepathy, 89 to 90 

Fouille'e, Professor A., Member 
of the Institute, Paris, letter 
and reference, 90 to 91 

Gates, Professor Elmer, Direc- 
tor and Founder Elmer Gates 
Laboratories of Psychology 
and Psychurgy, Washington, 
D. C, Contribution of, 319 to 
359 

Hericourt, Dr., School of Medi- 
cine, Paris, Contribution of, 
85 to 86 



Eulenberg, Dr. A., Prof. Unl- Hartzog, Professor Henry S. 
versity of Berlin, Contribu- President Clemsen College, S. 

of, 87 to 88 ' C. Contribution of, 51 

(361) 



362 



Index 



Hudson, Thomson Jay, Ph. D., 
Detroit, Author "Law of 
Psychic Phenomena"; "Scien- 
tific Demonstration of a Fu- 
ture Life"; etc., Contribution 
of, 60 to 67 

James, Dr. H. P., St. Louis, 
(See Psychical Research). 

James, Professor William, Har- 
vard University, Expressions 
on Immortality, 91 to 92 

Joire, Dr. Paul, President So- 
ciety for Experimental Psych- 
ology, Lille, France, Contribu- 
tion of, 35 to 39 

Lombroso, Dr. Cesare, Profes- 
sor of Phychology, University 
of Turin, Contribution of, 35 

Massey, C. C, Expressions of, 

58 to 59 

Mendelieff, Professor D. I., 
Director Government Bureau 
Weights and Measures, St. 
Petersburg, Contributions of, 
88 to 89 

Newcomb, Astronomer, Wash- 
ington, D. C, Letter, 69 

Ochorowicz, Dr., Professor Uni- 
versity of Lemberg, Expres- 
sions of, 71 to 72 

Perrier, Edmond, Director of 
the Museum, Paris, Contribu- 
tion of, 69 

Potter, Bishop H. C, New 
York, Letter of and reference 
to Professor Shaler, 39 

Nichols, Prof. James H., Bos- 
ton, Expressions of, 50 to 51 

Shaler, Professor Nathaniel S., 
Dean of Lawrence Scientific 
School, Professor of Geology, 
Harvard University, Expres- 
sions on immortality, in "The 
Individual". 39 to 48 



Scozzi, Dr. Visani, Florence, 
Italy, Contribution of, 55 to 
58 

Van Giesen, Dr. Ira, New York, 
Letter of and reference to 
Prof. Clifford, 104 

Van der Naillen, A., President 
School of Engineering, San 
Francisco, Contribution of, 86 
to 87 

Ward, Dr. Duren J. H., Iowa 
City, Iowa, Contribution of, 
59 to 60 



PSYCHICAL RESEARCHERS. 

Beeson, Dr. Hamilton A,, 
Leedsburg, Ohio, Contribution 
of, 175 to 176 

Burgess, Dr. O. O., San Fran- 
cisco, Contribution of, 183 to- 
188 

Gibier, Dr Paul, Late Director 
of the Pasteur Institute, New 
York, Contribution of, 176 to 

182 

Hodgson, Richard, LL. D, Sec- 
retary of the American 
Branch, Society for Psychical 
Research, Boston, Expres- 
sions of, 121 to 127 

Husted, Dr. A. D., Pittsburg, 
Pa., Contribution of, 153 to 
154 

Hyslop, J. H., Professor of 
Logic and Ethics, Columbia 
University, New York, Inves- 
tigation and expressions on 
Mrs. Piper, 10; 107; 154 to 
166 

James, Dr. H. F.. St. Lotiis,. 
Contribution of, 72 to 73 



Index 



363 



Lang, Andrew, London, Contri- 
bution of, 143 

Lay, Dr, Wilfrid, New Rochelle, 
New York., Contribution of, 
133 

Lodfire, Prof. Sir Oliver, F. R. S. 
President Society for Piiychi- 
cal Research, Birmingham, 
England, Answer to query 
and general expressions of, 
10; 107; 134 to 143 

Myers, Frederic W. H., Late 
President Society for Phych- 
ical Research, Expressions of, 
on subject of survival, 113 to 
120 

Quimby, Rev. John W., East 
Bridgewater, Mass,, Contribu- 
tion of, 133 

Eichet, Professor Charles, Mem- 
ber of the French Academy 
of Sciences, Director of the 
Scientific Review, Paris, Con- 
victions of Through Psychical 
Research, 166 to 175 

Bobbins, Ellen Rice, Manches- 
ter, N. H., Contribution of, 
196 to 197 

Savage, Rev. Dr. Minot J., New 
York, Expressions of, in "Life 
Beyond Death", 143 to 153 

Van Eeden, Dr. Frederick, Bus- 
sum, Holland, Investigations 
in Psychical Research and 
Convictions of, 127 to 133 

Wells, Dr. David W. Boston, 
Contribution of, 120 to 121 

Whiting, Lilian, Expressions of, 
188 to 196 

PHILOSOPHERS. 

Anderson, A. W., Ph. D., Presi- 
dent Macalaster College, St. 
Paul, Contribution of, 230 to 
231 



Bantandier, Cardinal, Rome, 
Contribution of, 247 to 248 

Bryan, Wm. J., Lincoln, Con- 
tribution of, 260 to 261. 

Butler, Dr. Hiram E., Editor 
and Author, Applegate, Cal., 
Contribution of, 219 to 222. 

Butler, Prof. Nathaniel, Presi- 
dent Colby College, Water- 
ville. Me., Contribution of, 
237 

Cams, Dr. Paul, Editor and 
Author, Chicago, Letter and 
expressions of, 243 to 247 

Colville, W. J., Expression of, 
240 to 243 

Emerson, Ralph W., Reference 
and opinions of, 252 to 253 

Gasc-Desfosses, Ed. Professor 
Philosophy, Paris, Contribu- 
tion of, 205 to 214 

Gibbons, James, Cardinal Arch- 
bishop of Baltimore, Expres- 
sions of, 222 to 228 

Grasset, Dr. J., Professor Fac- 
ulty of Medicine, Montpelier, 
France, Contribution of, 215 

Harris, Dr. W. T., Commission- 
er of Education, Washington, 
D. C, Contribution of and 
reference, 237 to 239 

Hebard, Dr. Chas., Mondovi, 
Wis., Contribution of, 257 to 
258 

Heighton, Henry E., Lawyer, 
San Francisco, Contribution 
of, 235 to 237 

Hillis, Rev. Newell Dwlght, 
New York, Expression of, 200; 
261 to 267 

Jessup, Dr. Halton I., Phila- 
delphia, Contribution of, 239 



3^4 



Index 



Kant, Immanuel, Reference and 
Expressions of, 258 to 260; 270 

Knowles, Edward R., LL, D., 
West Sussex, Mass., Contribu- 
tion of, 229 to 230 

Linford, Professor James, Pres- 
ident Brigham Young College, 
Logan, Utah, Contribution of, 

215 to 216 

Mercer, Dr. Edward W., Pliila- 
delphia. Contribution of, 235 

Newton, Rev. R. Heber, New 
York, Contribution of, 205 

Nunn, Dr. Richard J., Savan- 
nah, Ga., Contribution of, 214 
to 215 

Osborne, Professor J. W., Palo 
Alto, Cal., Contribution of, 

216 to 218 

Pitzer, Dr. Geo. C, Los An- 
geles, Contribution of, 218 

Putnam, Frank A., Editor Na- 
tional Magazine, Boston, Con- 
tribution of, 216 

Reid, Dr. H. A., Pasadena, Cal., 
Contribution of, 232 to 235 

Sinnett, A. P., Author, London, 
Expressions of, 248 to 252 

Thomas, Dr. H. w., People's 
Church, Chicago, Contribution 
of, 222 

Tarkhane - MourawofiE, Prince 
Jean de, Professor, University 
of St. Petersburg, Contribu- 
tion of, 228 to 229 

Vivekananda, Swami, Expres- 
sions of, on Immortality, 200; 
253 to 257 

Warren, W. F., S. T. D., LL. 

D., President Boston Univer- 
sity, Boston, Contribution of, 
248 



Waterloo, Stanley, Author, Chi- 
cago, Contribution of, 231 to 
232 

Whiton, J. M., Ph. D., Author, 
New York, Contribution of, 
218 to 219 

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, Editor 
and Author, New York, Con- 
tribution of, 15. 



SPIRITUALISTS. 

Barrett, Harrison D., Editor 
Banner of Light, Boston, 
President National Spiritual- 
its' Association, Needham, 
Mass., Contribution of, 299 to 
300 

Crookes, Sir William (see Scien- 
tists). 

Davis, Dr. Andrew Jackson, 
Vineland, N. J., Expressions 
on Significance of Death and 
Evidence of Survival, 301 to 
311 

Flammarion, Camille, (see Scien- 
tists). 

Gibier, Dr. Paul, (see Psychical 
Researchers). 

Kingsbury, Hon. B. B., Defi- 
ance, Ohio, Contribution of, 
296 to 299 

Peebles, Dr. J. M., Editor and 
Author, Battle Creek, Mich., 
Contribution of, 281 to 282 

Richmond, Cora L. V., Lecturer, 
Chicago, Contribution of, 277 
to 281 

Russell, Arthur J., "The Jour- 
nal," Minneapolis, Contribu- 
tion of, 300 to 801. 



Sears, Edmond H., 
311 to 312 



Reference 



Index 



365 



stead, Wm. T., Editor Review 
of Reviews, London, Expres- 
sions of, and Reference, 282 
to 285 

Wallace, Professor Alfred R., 
F. R. S., Dorset, England, 
Contribution of, 285 to 296 

Savage, Rev. Minot J., (see Psy- 
chical Researchers). 



SUPPLEMENT. 

Gates, Professor Elmer, Found- 
er and Director Elmer Gates 
Laboratories of Psychology 
and Psychurgy, Washington, 
D. C, Immortality from New 
Standpoints, 319 to 359 



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